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1 


THE   GENIUS   OF   SOLITUDE. 


WORKS  BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR. 


THE  POETRY  OF  THE  ORIENT.  A  Critical  and 
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ROBERTS  BROTHERS,  PUBLISHERS, 
.    Boston,  Mass. 


THE 


SOLITUDES 


OF 


NATURE    AND    OF    MAN; 


OR, 


Ttie  Loneliness  of  Human  Life. 


BY 


WILLIAM  ROUNSEVILLE  ALGER. 


Hast  du  Begriff  von  Oed'  und  Einsamkeit  f 

GOETHE. 


BOSTON: 
ROBERTS     BROTHERS. 

1882. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1866,  by 

W.     R.     ALGER, 
in  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  District  of  Massachusetts. 


TENTH     EDITION. 


TO 
JAMES     MARTINEAU, 

WHOSE  GENEROUS  HEART  BRINGS  HIM   INTO  SYMPATHY 

WITH    THE    MULTITUDE    OF    MEN    FROM 

WHOM   HIS  LOFTY  MIND  WOULD 

ISOLATE  HIM, 

THESE    PAGES    ARE    DEDICATED 


REVERENCE    AND    GRATITUDE. 


PREFACE. 


THOSE  who  have  the  key  for  interpreting  the  signs 
of  genuine  thought  and  emotion  will  perceive  that  this 
book  has  sprung  sincerely  from  the  inmost  life  of  the 
writer.  His  ambition  has  been  to  make  it  the  Book 
of  Solitude,  whose  readers  may  learn  from  it  how  at 
the  same  time  to  win  the  benefits  and  shun  the'  evils 
of  being  alone.  The  subject  —  the  conditions  and  in- 
fluences of  solitude  in  its  various  forms  —  is  so  largely 
concerned  with  disturbed  feelings  that  it  is  difficult,  in 
treating  it,  to  keep  free  from  everything  unhealthy,  ex- 
cessive, or  eccentric.  In  view  of  this,  great  pains  have 
been  taken  to  avoid  every  morbid  extravagance,  and 
stay  close  by  the  standards  of  sanity,  truth,  and  cheer- 
fulness. For  an  author  ought  not  to  dishearten,  but 
to  inspire  his  readers ;  not  to  exhale  around  them  an 
infecting  atmosphere  of  hates,  griefs,  and  despairs,  but 
to  warm  and  strengthen  them  with  his  health,  valor, 
and  contentment.  We  grow  old  to  trust  and  joy,  and 
they  become  vapid.  Doubt  and  sadness  keep  their 
fresh  force,  we  are  always  young  to  them.  They  should, 
therefore,  never  be  disseminated.  In  treating  themes 
pertaining  to  the  deepest  emotions,  the  temptations  to 
satire  and  to  sentimentality  are  both  strong ;  but  for  the 
exertion  of  a  sound  influence  those  temptations  should 
be  resisted.  Faith,  direct  sincerity,  undiseased  tender- 
ness, and  the  authority  of  well-mastered  experience,  are 
the  best  qualities  in  a  teacher. 

In  dealing  with  the  affairs  of  the  heart,  every  form 
of  unfeelingness  is  an  offence.  It  is  by  drawing  out 


Vlll  PREFACE. 

and  satisfying,  not  by  freezing  or  searing,  the  affec- 
tions, that  true  happiness  and  peace  are  to  be  won. 
The  warm  effusion  of  Christianity  is  better  adapted  to 
human  nature  than  the  dry  chill  of  Stoicism.  Every 
man  obscurely  feels,  though  scarcely  any  man  distinctly 
understands,  the  intimacy  and  vastness  of  his  connections 
with  his  race.  It  is  true  that  the  real  world  of  the  soul 
is  an  invisible  place,  removed  from  the  rush  and  chatter 
of  crowds,  and  that  the  most  important  portion  of  life 
is  the  secret  and  solitary  portion.  Yet  the  most  influen- 
tial element  even  of  this  secluded  world  and  this  hidden 
life,  is  the  element  which  consists  of  the  ideas  and  feel- 
ings we  habitually  cherish  in  relation  to  our  fellow-beings. 
The  philosophy  of  solitude  has  been  well  discussed  — 
bating  an  occasional  romantic  vein  with  morbid  tinges  — 
by  Zimmermann,  whose  work  permanently  identifies  his 
name  with  the  subject  I  had  not  read  that  celebrated 
treatise  until  after  the  completion  of  my  own,  and  am  in- 
debted to  it  for  nothing  beyond  the  citations  explicitly 
made  from  it  in  the  revision  of  these  pages.  Zimmer- 
mann's  personal  experience  of  solitude,  and  long  brooding 
over  it,  contributed  much  to  the  value  of  his  work ;  which 
is  comprehensive  in  survey,  rich  in  learning,  penetrative 
in  thought,  vivid  in  sentiment,  and  eloquent  in  diction. 
On  the  other  hand  it  is  too  diffuse  in  style,  too  expanded 
in  form.  It  was  translated  into  the  chief  languages  of 
Europe  and  had  a  vast  sale.  The  English  translation,  so 
widely  scattered  half  a  century  ago,  comprised  only  about 
a  third  part  of  the  matter  in  the  four  volumes  of  the 
original  German,  which  the  author  had  elaborately  rewrit- 
ten with  great  enlargements.  Besides  the  important  work 
of  Zimmermann  there  are  in  the  literary  remains  of  emi- 
nent men  —  among  whom  Petrarch,  Montaigne,  Cowper, 
and  Schopenhauer  deserve  special  mention — a  multitude 
of  essays,  poems,  and  letters,  on  solitude.  These  I  have 
carefully  searched,  and  have  endeavored  to  enrich  my 
own  disquisition  by  appropriately  quoting  from  them  their 
best  things.  I  have  not  gathered  these  numerous  quota- 
tions in  a  pedantic  spirit,  for  a  show  of  learning,  nor  in  a 
poetic  spirit,  for  mere  ornament,  but  in  a  didactic  spirit. 


PREFACE.  IX 

in  the  belief  that  the  collection  thus  made  of  the  solemn 
and  weighty  or  beautiful  and  pathetic  expressions  of 
authoritative  minds  would  be  valuable.  I  cannot  help 
believing  that  the  best  readers,  so  far  from  bringing  against 
me  the  charge  of  superfluity  in  quotation,  will  be  grateful 
for  the  use  of  these  auxiliaries.  It  stands  to  reason  that 
no  man  can  handle  a  great  moral  theme  from  his  single 
mind  so  well  as  he  can  when  aided  by  the  contributions 
of  the  wise  men  who  have  handled  it  before.  The  form, 
divisions,  and  method  of  the  present  work  have  grown  out 
of  my  own  meditations.  Its  development  in  details  has, 
of  course,  been  modified  as  well  by  the  inspiring  suggest- 
iveness  of  the  writings  of  others  on  the  same  subject,  as 
by  the  transplantation  into  it,  with  due  credit,  of  many 
of  the  most  nutritious  thoughts  and  sanative  sentiments 
met  with  in  them. 

Contempt  and  scorn,  unless  directed  by  nobler  emotions, 
are  as  pernicious  as  they  are  easy  and  vulgar.  Pure 
forms  of  reverence  and  aspiration  are  more  rarely  felt  as 
facts  of  experience,  and  are  more  difficult  of  attainment 
as  attributes  of  character.  But  it  is  better  to  lift  the  eye 
than  to  curl  the  lip.  The  aphorism  of  Lavater  is  good  : 
Trust  him  little  who  smilingly  praises  all  alike,  him  less 
who  sneeringly  censures  all  alike,  him  least  who  is  coldly 
indifferent  to  all  alike.  Did  I  not  believe  this  book 
adapted  to  develop  both  a  healthy  dislike  for  what  is  bad 
in  men,  and  a  becoming  admiration  and  love  for  what  is 
good  in  them,  I  would  fling  it  into  the  fire  instead  of 
committing  it  to  the  press.  Is  there  anything  else  so 
odious  as  the  passions  of  hatred  and  envy  ?  What  else 
is  so  desirable  as  the  qualities  of  devoutness,  wisdom, 
magnanimity,  and  peace  ?  Unless  the  author  is  ignorant 
of  his  own  heart  he  has  written  the  following  pages  with 
the  warmest  pity  for  the  victims  of  the  ignoble  traits  of 
human  life,  and  with  a  fervent  desire  to  remove  the  causes 
of  their  sufferings.  Unless  he  is  deceived  he  has  also 
been  actuated  by  a  religious  veneration  for  great  and  good 
men,  the  heroic  masters  in  virtue,  and  by  a  purpose  to 
exalt  them  before  the  multitude  as  ideals  which  shall 
exert  an  influence  to  mould  to  their  likeness  those  who 
i  * 


X  PREFACE. 

earnestly  contemplate  them.  Great  men  heighten  the 
consciousness  of  the  human  race ;  and  it  is  our  grateful 
duty  to  magnify  him  whose  genius  magnifies  mankind. 
The  roll  of  persons  admiringly  treated  of  in  the  following 
leaves  composes  a  list  of  names  fit  to  be  kept  in  the  cas- 
ket of  a  king. 

The  majority  of  men  in  every  age  are  superficial  in 
character  and  brittle  in  purpose,  and  lead  undedicated 
lives  ;  swarming  together  in  buzzing  crowds  in  all  haunts 
of  amusement  or  places  of  low  competition,  caring  little 
for  anything  but  gossip  and  pastime,  the  titillation  of  the 
senses,  and  the  gratification  of  conceit.  To  state  the 
conditions  and  illustrate  the  attractions  of  a  holier  and 
grander  happiness,  —  to  hold  up  the  examples  of  nobler 
characters  and  lives,  lifted  into  something  of  loneliness 
by  their  gifts  and  achievements,  —  is,  accordingly,  always 
a  timely  service.  All  better  lives  are  so  much  redeeming 
leaven  kneaded  into  the  lump  of  humanity. 

There  are  many  disappointed  and  discontented  men 
and  women,  exasperated  with  society,  uneasy  with  seclu- 
sion, galled  by  the  bonds  of  the  world  when  they  feel  its 
multitudinous  emulation,  unable  to  enjoy  freedom  and 
repose  when  they  retreat  into  solitude.  Sometimes  this 
state  is  a  consequence  of  poor  health.  Then  the  patient 
has  more  need  of  the  physician  than  of  the  divine,  the 
first  desideratum  being  the  restoration  of  the  nervous 
system  to  its  normal  tone.  Generally,  however,  there  is 
equal  occasion  for  moral  counsel  and  medicinal  direction. 
But  when  this  experience  is  more  purely  a  moral  result, 
it  is,  in  most  cases,  the  product  of  a  too  magnified  opin- 
ion of  self  combined  with  a  too  acute  feeling  of  that 
opinion.  Exactingness  is  the  bane,  renunciation  the 
antidote.  Self-respect  may  be  the  sternest  wisdom,  but 
self-idolatry  is  infatuation.  This  is  one  of  the  many 
questions  which  must  be  analyzed  in  any  adequate  pre- 
sentation of  the  causes  of  human  loneliness. 

The  author  now  dismisses  his  book  of  solitude,  to  find 
its  way  and  do  its  work  among  men,  in  the  hope  that  it 
may  render  many  an  unhappy  heart  that  service  of  sym- 
pathetic guidance  which  he  feels  such  a  work  would,  at 
an  earlier  day,  have  rendered  himself. 


CO  N  TE  N  TS. 


PART   I. 
THE    SOLITUDES  OF  NATURE. 

INTRODUCTION.    GREGARIOUSNESS  AND  SOLITARINESS   .       .  19 

1.  THE  SOLITUDE  OF  THE  DESERT 21 

2.  THE  SOLITUDE  OF  THE  PRAIRIE 21 

3.  THE  SOLITUDE  OF  THE  OCEAN 21 

4.  THE  SOLITUDE  OF  THE  POLE 22 

5.  THE  SOLITUDE  OF  THE  FOREST 23 

6.  THE  SOLITUDE  OF  THE  MOUNTAIN 24 

7.  THE  SOLITUDE  OF  THE  RUIN 25 

PART    II. 
THE    SOLITUDES    OF    MAN. 

INTRODUCTION.    PHYSICAL  SOLITUDE  AND  SPIRITUAL  LONE- 
LINESS         .       .       •       .       .  31 

1.  THE  SOLITUDE  OF  INDIVIDUALITY  .....  34 

2.  THE  SOLITUDE  OF  GRIEF 40 

3.  THE  SOLITUDE  OF  LOVE 47 

4.  THE  SOLITUDE  OF  OCCUPATION 55 

5.  THE  SOLITUDE  OF  SELFISHNESS 59 

6.  THE  SOLITUDE  OF  GENIUS 65 

7.  THE  SOLITUDE  OF  DEATH 82 


•  PART    III. 
THE    MORALS    OF    SOLITUDE. 

i   THE  DANGERS  OF  SOLITUDE 91 

2.  THE  USES  OF  SOLITUDE  .......        140 

CONCLUSION ....    178 


Xll  CONTENTS. 

PART    IV. 
SKETCHES    OF    LONELY   CHARACTERS: 

OR,   PERSONAL  ILLUSTRATIONS  OF  THE  GOOD  AND  EVIL  OF 
SOLITUDE. 

GOTAMA  BUDDHA    *. 185 

CONFUCIUS 202 

DEMOSTHENES 205 

TACITUS 206 

LUCRETIUS 207 

CICERO 208 

BOETHIUS 213 

DANTE 213 

PETRARCH 223 

TASSO 233 

BRUNO 235 

Vico 236 

DESCARTES 239 

HOBBES 242 

LEIBNITZ 244 

MILTON 246 

PASCAL 249 

ROUSSEAU     .  255 

ZlMMERMANN 262 

BEETHOVEN 267 

SHELLEY 272 

COLERIDGE 276 

WORDSWORTH •  .  277 

BYRON 289 

BLANCO  WHITE 304 

LEOPARDI 307 

FOSTER 310 

CHANNING 311 

ROBERTSON 321 

CHOPIN .  324 

THOREAU 329 

MAURICE  DE  GUERIN 338 

HEGEL 350 

SCHOPENHAUER 358 

EUGENIE  DE  GUJ£RIN         ....*.  .  365 

COMTE     . .  372 

JESUS  . -377 


SUMMARY  OF  THE  SUBJECT    .  .  198 


THE  SOLITUDES  OF  NATURE, 


THE   SOLITUDES   OF   NATURE. 


Gregariousness  and  Solitariness. 

AT  the  first  glance  every  form  of  being  appears  to  be 
social,  all  the  world  gregarious.  The  trees  interlace  their 
branches  and  wave  their  tops  in  multitudinous  union  ; 
from  the  equator  to  the  poles  the  waves  shoulder  their 
fellows,  glistening  with  innumerable  smiles ;  whole  or- 
chards of  apple-blossoms  blush  in  correspondence ;  in 
regiments  the  ranks  of  corn  laugh  on  the  slopes  ;  ponds 
of  lilies  uncover  their  bosoms  to  the  moon  ;  meadows  of 
grass-blades  bend  before  the  breeze ;  and  the  barley  rus- 
tles millions  of  beards  together  on  the  lea.  Shoals  of 
herring  solidify  acres  of  the  sea  with  moving  life.  Infini- 
tudes of  phosphorescent  organisms,  covering  the  surface 
of  the  deep,  turn  its  heaving  field  of  darkness  into  a  sheet 
of  fire.  There  are  ant-hills,  animated  cities  whose  inhab- 
itants outnumber  Jeddo  and  Pekin.  Villages  of  beavers 
build  in  company.  Shaggy  hosts  of  bisons  shake  the 
globe  with  the  dull  thunder  of  their  tread.  Herds  of 
antelopes  are  seen  crowding  the  entire  horizon  with  their 
graceful  forms.  The  naturalist  in  the  tropics  sometimes 
beholds  clouds  of  gorgeous  butterflies,  miles  in  width,  fly- 
ing past  him  overhead  all  day.  Captain  Flinders  saw,  on 
the  coast  of  Van  Diemen's  Land,  a  flight  of  sooty  petrels, 
in  a  stream,  which,  as  he  calculated,  contained  a  hundred 
millions.  Audubon,  while  crossing  the  Kentuaky  Bar- 
rens, in  eighteen  hundred  and  thirteen,  journeyed  for 
three  days  beneath  a  flock  of  passenger-pigeons,  which, 
according  to  his  careful  estimate,  formed  an  oblong 
square  a  mile  in  breadth  and  a  hundred  and  eighty  miles 


2O  THE   SOLITUDES   OF   NATURE. 

in  length,  and  included  more  than  a  billion  of  birds. 
Moving  firmaments  of  locusts  hide  the  heaven  and 
darken  the  earth.  And  what  mathematics  will  compute 
the  sum  of  the  insects  that  toil  in  the  erection  of  a  coral 
reef? 

Everywhere,  then,  we  see  nature  collecting  her  products, 
—  sands  on  the  shore,  leaves  in  the  wood,  fields  of  flowers, 
aggregations  of  mountains,  firmaments  of  stars,  swarms 
of  insects,  flocks  of  birds,  herds  of  beasts,  crowds  of 
persons.  Life  would  thus  seem  to  be  attractive,  the  ene- 
my of  isolation,  huddling  its  subjects  into  social  close- 
ness, from  heaps  of  mites  to  tribes  of  men.  But,  after 
all,  these  phenomena  are  exceptional,  and  the  inferences 
delusive.  There  is  more  loneliness  in  life  than  there  is 
communion.  The  solitudes  of  the  world  out-measure  its 
societies.  If  consciousness  sometimes  draws,  it  has  its 
pole  of  repulsion  as  well ;  and  much  of  that  which  looks 
like  fellowship  is  really  but  an  amassment  of  separations. 
What  sociality  is  there  in  compact  leagues  of  animalculae  ? 
Each  one,  shut  in  his  incommunicative  cell,  might  as  well 
have  the  solar  system  to  himself.  The  higher  we  look 
on  the  scale  of  strength  and  individuality,  the  more  isola- 
ted we  see  that  the  nature  and  habits  of  creatures  are. 
The  eagle  chooses  his  eyrie  in  the  bleakest  solitude ;'  the 
condor  affects  the  deserted  empyrean ;  the  leopard  prowls 
through  the  jungle  by  himself;  the  lion  has  a  lonely  lair. 
So  with  men.  While  savages,  like  the  Hottentots,  gibber 
in  their  kraals,  and,  among  civilized  nations,  the  dissi- 
pated and  the  frivolous  collect  in  clubs  and  assemblies, 
dreading  to  be  left  in  seclusion,  —  the  poet  loves  his  soli- 
tary walk,  the  saint  retreats  to  be  closeted  with  God,  and 
the  philosopher  wraps  himself  in  immensity. 

Preparatory  to  fixing  attention  on  the  various  forms  of 
the  loneliness  of  human  life,  a  contemplation  of  some 
of  the  gigantic  solitudes  of  nature  may  envelop  the  soul 
in  a  befitting  atmosphere  of  sentiment 


THE   SOLITUDE   OF   THE   OCEAN.  21 

The  Solitude  of  the  Desert. 

As  we  advance  into  the  solitude  of  the  desert,  not  an 
animal,  not  an  insect,  breaks  the  perfect  silence  ;  not  a 
tree  or  a  shrub  varies  the  interminable  monotony  of 
sand.  Over  the  arid  and  level  floor  you  may  sweep  the 
circumference  of  vision  with  a  glass,  and  not  behold  a 
moving  speck.  Only  when,  here  and  there,  a  bleached 
skeleton  peers  out  of  the  drift,  Solitude  seems  to  find  a 
speechless  voice  in  death,  and  mutely  to  proclaim  its 
sway.  At  noon,  in  the  glaring  furnace,  the  eye  faints  to 
see  the  air  incessantly  quiver  with  heat ;  and  night,  when 
it  comes,  broods,  chill  and  still,  under  the  low-arched  sky, 
sparkling  with  magnified  stars. 


The  Solitude  of  the  Prairie. 

THE  solitude  of  the  prairie  is  wonderful.  Day  after 
day,  from  morning  till  evening,  the  traveller  journeys  for- 
ward, wearing  the  horizon  as  a  girdle,  without  seeming 
to  change  his  spot ;  for  the  immense  circuit  of  which  he 
is  the  centre  appears  to  move  with  him.  An  ocean  of 
grass  around,  an  immitigable  gulf  of  azure  above,  he 
feels  as  if  he  stood  on  the  top  of  the  world,  the  circular, 
sharp-cut  level  of  an  inverted  cone,  upon  which  the 
bulging  dome  of  heaven  shuts  down  in  accurate  adjust- 
ment. He  looks  around  the  unvarying  wilderness  of 
verdure,  and  it  seems  as  if  the  whole  universe  were  that, 
and  there  were  nothing  beside. 


The  Solitude  of  the  Ocean. 

THOUGH  civilized  man  has  grown  more  familiar  with 
the  ocean,  it  is  none  the  less  a  solitude.  How  melan- 
choly is  its  ceaseless  wash,  how  lonely  its  perpetual 
swing,  without  a  comrade  in  its  convulsion  or  its  calm  1 
How,  beneath  the  immense  stoop  of  naked  sky,  within 
the  blue  walls  of  air,  in  illimitable  fluctuation,  it  stretches 


22  THE   SOLITUDES    OF   NATURE. 

away  from  the  stagnation  of  the  weedy  gulf,  in  one  direc- 
tion, to  where  winter  locks  its  moaning  billows  in  silence 
to  the  polar  cliffs ;  in  the  other  direction,  to  where  its 
cataracts  of  surf  crash  on  the  Indian  coast.  Everywhere, 
out  of  sight  of  land,  its  spirit  and  expression  are  solitary, 
awful,  scornfully  exclusive  of  sympathy.  Perched  alone 
on  the  mast-head,  gazing  on  the  unbroken  horizon,  how 
inexpressibly  little  a  man  feels  himself  to  be  !  Whether 
he  contemplates  the  unity  of  the  ship,  frail  speck  on  the 
fearful  abyss,  the  unity  of  the  overarching  heaven,  the 
unity  of  weltering  desolation  around,  or  the  unity  of 
mystery  enveloping  all,  it  awakens  an  appalling  sense  of 
lonesomeness. 


The  Solitude  of  the  Pole. 

THE  most  dense  and  dreary  of  physical  solitudes  is 
that  of  the  polar  realm.  Now,  with  the  cracking  in  splits 
of  the  frozen  fields,  the  falling  of  ice-cliffs,  the  grinding 
of  floes,  the  shrieks  of  the  gale,  one  would  imagine 
heaven  and  earth  were  going  to  pieces  in  the  uproar. 
Again,  the  elemental  strife  at  rest,  the  mariner  treads  his 
deck,  or  wanders  inland,  where  the  total  life  of  the  globe 
appears  suspended,  and  a  silence,  oppressive  as  if  Nature 
held  her  breath,  prevails.  Occasionally  a  single  walrus 
crawls  out  in  the  cold:gleaming  sunlight,  and  vainly  looks 
around  the  horizon  for  a  living  fellow  ;  the  dwindled  fir- 
mament, full  of  large,  lustrous  stars,  circles,  swift  and 
noiseless,  and  everywhere  is  one  unrelieved  expanse  of 
ice  and  snow.  Sometimes  the  voyager  meets  a  flock  of 
floating  mountains  journeying  southwards,  huge  masses 
of  deathly  whiteness,  slow,  silent,  solemn  as  messengers 
from  a  dead  world.  At  another  time  the  Aurora  Borealis 
suffuses  the  spectral  world  of  ice ;  and  fantastic  villages, 
battlements,  cloisters,  pinnacles  and  spires,  with  unimagin- 
able colors,  make  it  look  like  a  gorgeous  collection  of 
oriental  cities.  But  always  are  found  belonging  there  a 
remoteness,  a  strangeness,  a  terror,  essentially  solitary. 


THE  SOLITUDE   OF   THE   FOREST.  23 


The  Solitude  of  the  Forest. 

THERE  are  striking  peculiarities  about  the  solitude  of 
the  forest  These  solitudes  are  very  numerous.  Vast 
woods  of  magnolias  and  rhododendrons,  on  the  untrav- 
ersed  flanks  of  the  Himalayan  range,  outspread  an  im- 
measurable wilderness  of  blossoms,  and  conceal  in  their 
fragrant  solitude  the  mysteries  of  immemorial  ages  of 
nature.  The  great  reaches  of  pine  and  fir  on  the  Apen- 
nine  and  Alpine  sides,  of  Norway  spruce  and  Russian 
larch  occupying  the  uncleared  north  of  Europe,  their 
billowy  tops  rolling  in  the  summer  breeze,  their  branches 
whistling  to  the  icy  blast,  hide  the  unprofaned  retreats  of 
the  primeval  world,  in  whose  ancient  gloom  man  is  as 
much  alone  as  though  transported  to  another  planet. 
Maurice  de  Gue'rin  describes  a  scene  of  awful  loneliness 
he  witnessed  in  a  French  wood.  "  A  tremendous  north 
wind  roars  over  the  forest  and  makes  it  give  forth  deep 
groans.  The  trees  bow  under  the  furious  blows  of  the 
gale.  We  see  through  the  branches  the  clouds  which  fly 
swiftly  in  black  and  strange  masses,  seeming  to  skim  the 
summits  of  the  trees.  This  vast,  dark,  swimming  veil 
occasionally  lets  a  ray  of  the  sun  dart  through  a  rent  into 
the  bosom  of  the  forest.  These  sudden  flashes  of  light 
give  to  the  appalling  depths  in  the  shadow  something 
haggard  and  strange,  like  a  smile  on  the  lips  of  a  corpse." 
Enormous  tropical  forests  in  Africa,  superb  with  pomp 
of  palms  and  baobabs,  of  rosewood,  ebony,  teak,  tama- 
rinds and  acacias,  brilliant  with  oriental  exuberance  of 
colored  flower,  fruit  and  vine,  have  never  echoed  stroke 
of  axe,  step  or  voice  of  humanity,  in  their  recesses.  The 
aboriginal  woods  of  western  North  America  seem  as  if 
they  might  harbor  a  million  anchorites,  not  one  of  whom 
should  be  within  a  day's  journey  of  any  other.  The  trav- 
eller who  pauses  in  the  gigantic  cedar-groves  of  Mari 
posa,  penetrated  by  the  spirit  of  unspeakable  seclusion 
and  rest  that  reigns  there,  feels  as  if  he  had  reached  the 
heart  of  solitude,  where  the  genius  of  antiquity  is  en- 
throned on  a  couch  of  gray  repose. 


»4  THE   SOLITUDES   OF   NATURE. 

But  all  other  forests  are  trifling,  every  other  solitude  on 
earth,  except  that  of  the  sea,  is  small  when  compared 
with  the  tract  of  colossal  vegetation  which  covers  the 
South  American  basin  between  the  Orinoco  and  the  Ama- 
zon. In  one  part  of  this  green  wilderness  a  circle  may 
be  drawn,  eleven  hundred  miles  in  diameter,  the  whole 
area  of  which  is  virgin  forest,  presenting  impenetrable 
masses  of  interwoven  climbers  and  flowery  festoons,  im- 
penetrable walls  of  huge  trunks  in  actual  contact,  — 
showing  what  stupendous  room,  yet  unimproved,  God  has 
made  for  the  multiplication  of  men  and  their  homes ; 
showing  that  Malthus  and  his  theory  were  born  in  undue 
time.  At  night,  when  the  beasts  of  prey  are  abroad,  the 
noise  is  as  though  hell  were  holding  carnival  there.  But 
at  noon,  the  sultry  stillness,  almost  palpable,  is  broken 
only  when  some  hoary  giant,  undermined  by  age,  crashes 
in  columnar  death.  The  grandeur  and  solemnity  of  this 
verdant  temple  fill  the  mind  with  awe.  The  gloom  and 
loneliness  are  so  depressing  that  it  is  a  relief  to  emerge 
from  under  the  sombre  roof,  once  more  to  see  the  blue 
sky,  once  more  to  feel  the  clear  sunshine. 


The  Solitude  of  the  Mountain. 

A  far  different  solitude  is  found  on  the  summits  of 
mountains,  in  the  upper  veins  of  air.  We  leave  the  warm 
valley  below,  with  its  snugly  shielded  villages  and  the 
busy  stir  of  labor  and  merriment.  Over  many  a  weary 
height  we  climb,  at  each  stage  of  ascent  leaving  more  of 
the  domestic  world  behind.  Few  hearts  or  eyes  follow 
our  progress.  As  our  diminishing  forms  are  traced  from 
beneath  gradually  ascending,  we  find  everything  stunted 
and  bleak ;  we  pass  the  line  of  perpetual  snow ;  we 
reach  the  zone  of  shrubless  desolation,  where  not  a  leaf 
nor  a  bird  is  to  be  seen  :  the  shepherds  and  their  flocks 
have  disappeared  in  the  dim  deeps,  and  a  little  cloud  is 
our  only  comrade,  as,  still  mounting,  we  finally  pause  on 
the  summit  and  gaze.  The  world  lies  unfurled  below ; 
its  forests,  patches  of  carpeting ;  its  rivers,  silver  threads  , 


THE  SOLITUDE   OF  THE   RUIN.  25 

its  inhabitants,  annihilated  ;  its  noise  inaudible.  We  are 
alone  on  the  top.  Mists,  dismal  and  heavy  with  loads  of 
darkness  and  hail,  drift  by.  The  moon,  rapidly  hidden 
and  shown  by  the  clouds,  hangs  in  the  empty  air  and 
glares  at  us  on  a  level  with  our  eyes.  Uplifted  thus 
amidst  the  uncompanionable  concave,  a  crushing  sense 
of  loneliness,  of  orphanage  and  want,  possesses  the  soul, 
and  makes  it  sigh  for  a  humbler  station,  hedged  with  the 
works  of  society,  warm  with  the  embrace  of  love,  bright- 
ened by  the  smiles  of  friends. 


The  Solitude  of  the  Ruin. 

FINALLY  we  come  to  the  solitude  of  ruins,  —  relics  of 
the  past,  the  dolorous  dials  Time  in  his  passage  has  raised 
to  count  his  triumphs  and  measure  his  progress  by.  A 
ruin  is  forlorn  and  pathetic  wherever  seen,  —  in  an  isle  of 
African  Nilus,  or  in  a  forest  of  American  Yucatan.  The 
traveller  falls  into  a  pensive  mood,  as,  leaning  against  the 
stony  masses  of  Meroe,  whose  glory  the  barbarian  over- 
threw and  the  sands  buried,  he  scans  the  fading  marks 
of  the  life  that  once  flourished  on  that  now  silent  plain. 
The  same  experience  comes  over  him  when  his  steed 
wearily  penetrates  the  rank  grass  among  the  mounds  of 
Copan  and  Palenque,  the  riddle  of  whose  forgotten  civ- 
ilization baffles  every  guesser  who  inspects  its  remains, 
where  the  luxuriant  vegetation  has  overgrown  tombs  and 
temples,  here  and  there  a  palm,  in  its  resistless  upshoot, 
cleaving  altar  and  image,  column  and  skull.  The  Sphinx, 
that  strange  emblematic  creature,  half  beast,  half  human- 
ity, sixty-two  feet  in  height,  a  hundred  and  forty  feet  long, 
still  tarries  amidst  the  mute  desolation  whence  the  whole 
race  and  civilization  that  set  it  there  have  vanished.  Be- 
tween its  protruded  paws  originally  stood  a  temple  in 
which  sacrifices  were  offered.  The  temple  has  crumbled 
in  pieces.  •  The  sands  have  drifted  over  the  feet  and  high 
up  the  sides  of  the  mysterious  monster,  on  all  whose  sol- 
emn features  decay  has  laid  its  fingers.  Yet  the  pilgrim 
is  awed  as  he  looks  on  the  colossal  repose,  the  patient 


26  THE  SOLITUDES   OF   NATURE. 

majesty  of  those  features,  and  feels  the  pathetic  insignifi- 
cance of  his  own  duration,  in  contrast  with  the  unknown 
ages  and  events  that  have  sped  by  that  postured  enigma. 

Yes,  a  ruin,  whether  mantled  rich  with  ivy  or  swept 
bare  by  the  blast, — a  feudal  castle,  crumbling  on  the  cliff, 
the  snake  in  its  keep  and  the  owl  in  its  turret ;  or  a  tri- 
umphal pillar,  thrown  down  and  broken,  its  inscription 
obliterated,  its  history  "in  the  maw  of  oblivion, — wears 
the  mien  of  solitude,  breathes  the  sentiment  of  decay,  and 
is  a  touching  thing  to  see.  Ruins  symbolize  the  wishes 
and  fate  of  man ;  the  weakness  of  his  works,  the  fleeting- 
ness of  his  existence.  Who  can  visit  Thebes,  in  whose 
crowded  crypts,  as  he  enters,  a  flight  of  bats  chokes  him 
with  the  dust  of  disintegrating  priests  and  kings,  see  the 
sheep  nibbling  herbage  between  the  fallen  cromlechs  of 
Stonehenge,  or  confront  a  dilapidated  stronghold  of  the 
Middle  Age,  where  the  fox  looks  out  of  the  window  and 
the  thistle  nods  on  the  wall,  without  thinking  of  these 
things  ?  They  feelingly  persuade  him  what  he  is. 

And  how  thickly  these  gray  preachers  are  scattered 
over  the  world,  preaching  their  silent  sermons  of  evanes- 
cence, wisdom,  peace !  Tyre  was  situated  of  old  at  the 
entry  of  the  sea,  the  beautiful  mistress  of  the  earth, 
haughty  in  her  purple  garments,  the  tiara  of  commerce  on 
her  brow.  Now  the  dust  has  been  scraped  from  her  till 
she  has  become  a  blistered  rock,  whereon  the  solitary 
fisher  spreads  his  nets ;  and  along  all  her  coasts,  to  Sidon 
and  Tarshish,  the  booming  billows,  as  freightless  they  rise 
and  fall,  seem  to  ask,  "  Where  are  the  ships  of  Tyre  ? 
Where  are  the  ships  of  Tyre?"  A  few  tattered  huts 
stand  among  shapeless  masses  of  masonry  where  glorious 
Carthage  stood ;  the  houses  of  a  few  husbandmen,  where 
voluptuous  Corinth  once  lifted  her  splendid  array  of  mar- 
ble palaces  and  golden  towers.  Many  a  nation,  proud 
and  populous  in  the  elder  days  of  history,  like  Elephanta 
or  Memphis,  is  now  merely  a  tomb  and  a  shadowy  name. 
Pompeii  and  Herculaneum  are  empty  sepulchres,  which 
that  fatal  flight  before  the  storm  of  ashes  and  lava 
cheated  of  their  occupants  :  the  traveller  sees  poppies 
blooming  in  the  streets  where  the  chariots  once  flashed; 


THE  SOLITUDE   OF  THE   RUIN.  27 

unbidden  tears  come  as  he  lingers  where  the  veil  has 
been  ripped  from  the  statue  of  Isis,  or  pauses  where  the 
fire  is  extinct  on  the  altar  of  Vesta.  Etruria  is  one  stu- 
pendous grave,  teeming  with  an  empire's  dust.  The  muf- 
fled abode  of  millions  of  men  mingled  for  ages  on  ages 
with  the  mould  of  the  globe,  it  yields  no  admonishing 
reverberation  as  we  tread  over  it,  unless  we  meditate  and 
listen ;  then,  indeed,  the  mystic  soil,  borrowing  the 
tongues  of  time  and  destiny,  makes  every  particle  of  air 
in  the  solitude  vocal  with  pathetic  tidings.  As  the  mild 
effulgence  of  lunar  light  mitigates  the  ruinous  austerity 
of  the  Coliseum,  look  up  and  recall  the  time  when  the 
buzz  of  a  hundred  nations  ran  round  those  mighty 
walls  ;  and,  by  contrast,  how  vacant  and  how  dreary  the 
desolation  is  !  Roaming  among  the  remnants  of  Moorish 
grandeur  in  widowed  Granada,  strolling  through  the 
chambers  of  Alhambra,  admiring  the  delicious  propor- 
tions with  enjoyment  subdued  by  pity,  the  air  seems 
charged  with  tearful  sighs,  and  along  the  lonely  halls  the 
spirit  of  tradition  and  sympathy  wails  in  the  tones  of  an 
^olian  harp,  "Ah,  woe  is  me,  Alhama,  for  a  thousand 
years  ! "  When  we  reflect  that  tigers  foray  in  the  palace- 
yard  of  Persepolis,  and  camels  browse  in  Babylon  on  the 
site  of  Belshazzar's  throne, — when,  in  imagination,  at  Baal- 
bee,  we  march  down  majestic  avenues  littered  with  decay, 
see  lizards  overrunning  the  altars  of  the  Temple  of  the 
Sun,  and  in  the  sculptured  friezes,  here  the  nests  of  obscene 
birds,  there  the  webs  of  spiders,  —  when  we  survey  the 
extent  and  noble  forms  of  the  ruins  of  Paestum-amongst- 
the-Roses,  or  of  Tadmor-in-the-Wilderness,  forming  a 
scene  more  exquisitely  mournful  than  earth  otherwheie 
affords,  what  heart  of  man  will  not  fill  with  regret  and 
presages,  and  own  the  unfathomable  power  of  that  natu- 
ral solitude  which  crumbling  ait  fills  with  the  lost  history 
of  our  race? 


THE    SOLITUDES    OF    MAN, 


THE   SOLITUDES   OF   MAN. 


Physical  Solitude  and  Spiritual  Loneliness, 

AFTER  every  description  of  the  monotonous  wastes 
and  wilds  of  outward  nature,  we  receive  a  heightened 
impression  of  what  true  lonesomeness  is,  by  turning  to 
the  intenser  inner  deserts  of  mental  and  moral  being. 
Bleak  and  monstrous  and  unvaried  as  the  sterile  and 
gloomy  steppes  of  Mongolia  and  Tartary  are,  the  feeling 
of  vastness  and  terror  they  impart  is  weak  in  comparison 
with  that  obtained  from  contemplating  the  character  of 
Tamerlane,  — 

Timour  —  he 

Whom  the  astonished  people  saw 

Striding  o'er  empires  haughtily  — 

A  diademed  outlaw. 

The  spirit  and  career  of  Attila,  the  cosmogonic  dreams 
of  Swedenborg,   the   schemes  revolving   in    the    mighty 
brain  of  Mirabeau,  the  Titanic  aloofness  and  misanthropy 
of  Schopenhauer,  the  oceanic  soul  of  Spinoza  ringed  only 
by  the  All,  are  more  appalling,  more  suggestive  of  the 
infini'e,  than  any  material  bulks  or  abysses.     Is  it  a  terri- 
ble chasm  in  which  the  sprinkled  ranks  of  the  galaxy  are 
hung  ?     What,  then,  is  the  lonely  mystery  of  the  mind  in  \ 
whose  meditations  the  spectral  infinitude  of  astronomy  I 
lies  like  a  filmy  dot  ? 

The  physical  solitudes  of  nature  are  without  any  feeling 
of  their  own  incommunicable  separation  and  dreariness : 
but  the  spiritual  solitudes  of  man  are  conscious,  and  either 
pine  under  the  burden  of  isolation  or  groan  for  relief. 
The  sea,  as  its  murmuring  lip  caresses  the  shore,  or  its 


32  THE   SOLITUDES   OF    MAN. 

mountainous  surges  shatter  against  the  cliff,  seems  not  to 
feel  lonely,  is  company  enough  for  itself,  until  deserted 
yearning  man  approaches  to  give  it  contrast  and  interpre- 
tation. When  shipwrecked  man  lies  tossed  on  the  strand, 
thoughts  and  fears  of  home,  love,  death,  eternity,  thun- 
dering at  the  base  of  reason,  then  first  the  sympathizing 
phenomena  without  form  a  scene  of  genuine  solitude,  and 
loneliness  becomes  an  experience  of  anguish.  Obviously 
there  can  be  no  external  expanse  so  deserted,  so  sublime, 
as  that  night-scene  of  the  soul  when  it  muses,  alone,  with 
faith  and  wonder,  overhung  by  a  still  immensity  of  starry 
thoughts. 

Physical  solitude  and  spiritual  loneliness  suggest,  but 
do  not  imply,  each  other.  Either  may  blend  with  the 
other  to  heighten  it,  or  to  relieve  it.  Either  may  in- 
clude or  exclude  the  other.  On  a  morning  of  May, 
long  ago,  a  young  man  rode  across  an  Illinois  prairie, 
with  a  friend.  They  passed,  on  the  boundless  expanse, 
far  out  of  sight  of  any  human  habitation,  thousands  of 
crab-apple-trees  in  full  blossom,  their  beauty  and  fra- 
grance surpassing  all  that  he  had  ever  dreamed  of  vegeta- 
ble loveliness  and  perfume.  It  seemed  as  if  the  whole 
world  had  been  converted  into  green  grass,  blue  sky, 
apple-blossoms,  odor,  golden  sunrise,  and  two  men  on 
horseback.  Yet  loneliness  was  an  impossible  feeling. 
Every  capacity  of  the  soul  was  crowded  by  the  complex 
and  strange  exhilaration  of  that  hour.  Compare  with  such 
a  scene  and  experience  those  presented  by  a  convict  un- 
dergoing execution  in  front  of  a  hundred  thousand  spec- 
tators. While  the  officer  adjusts  the  cap  and  rope,  the 
most  awful  interests  of  man  are  brought  to  bear  on  the 
soul  of  the  unhappy  victim.  Eternity  seems  condensed 
in  the  dropping  moments.  There  is  no  solitude  here,  but 
how  dread  a  loneliness !  There  is  also  often  a  profound 
loneliness,  full  of  pain,  in  the  upper  rooms  of  those  high 
houses  in  great  cities,  in  which  the  poor  single  occupants 
hearken  to  the  almost  inaudible  murmur  of  the  streets 
below,  and  look  up  at  the  stars.  Countless  thousands  of 
men  close  around  each  wretched  garreteer,  yet  he  as 
bleakly  alone  as  though  drifting  on  a  plank  in  mid  ocean ! 


PHYSICAL   SOLITUDE   AND   SPIRITUAL    LONELINESS.     33 

To  sit  on  rocks,  to  muse  o'er  flood  and  fell, 

To  slowly  trace  the  forest's  shady  scene, 

Where  things  that  own  not  man's  dominion  dwell, 

And  mortal  foot  hath  ne'er  or  rarely  been ; 

To  climb  the  trackless  mountain  all  unseen, 

With  the  wild  flock  that  never  needs  a  fold ; 

Alone  o'er  steeps  and  foaming  falls  to  lean ; 

This  is  not  solitude  ;  't  is  but  to  hold 

Converse  with  Nature's  charms,  and  view  her  stores  unrolled. 

But  'midst  the  crowd,  the  hum,  the  shock  of  men, 
To  hear,  to  see,  to  feel,  and  to  possess, 
And  roam  along,  the  world's  tired  denizen, 
With  none  who  bless  us,  none  whom  we  can  bless, 
Minions  of  splendor  shrinking  from  distress  ! 
None  that,  with  kindred  consciousness  endued, 
If  we  were  not,  would  seem  to  smile  the  less 
Of  all  that  flattered,  followed,  sought  and  sued : 
This  is  to  be  alone  ;  this,  this  is  solitude. 

Epictetus,  in  his  fine  and  brave  little  essay  on  Solitude, 
gives  this  as  his  definition  of  it.  "  To  be  friendless  is  Soli- 
tude." The  more  sharply  we  meditate  on  it,  the  more  thor- 
oughly we  test  it,  the  more  deeply  to  the  root  of  the  mat- 
ter we  shall  find  this  word  of  the  cheerful  Phrygian  Stoic 
to  go.  Zimmermann  says,  "  Solitude  is  that  state  in  which 
the  soul  freely  resigns  itself  to  its  own  reflections."  This 
is  really  no  definition,  it  is  a  partial  and  superficial  de- 
scription, of  solitude.  More  strictly  it  is  a  statement  of 
one  of  the  effects  of  being  unoccupied  from  without. 
Obviously  solitude  is  the  deprivation  of  companionship  ; 
but  our  own  reflections  are  often  the  bestowers  of  a  vivid 
companionship.  The  true  definition  is  this.  Solitude  is 
the  reaction  of  the  soul  without  an  object  and  without  a 
product.  If  our  activity  has  objects,  those  objects  serve 
as  comrades  :  if  it  is  creative,  the  results  serve  as  com- 
rades. But  if  our  activity  is  the  overflow  of  unemployed 
powers  with  no  object  to  meet  and  return  it,  with  no 
product  to  embody  and  reflect  it,  we  are  conscious  of  an 
unrelieved  loneliness.  Solitude,  therefore,  is  the  reaction 
of  the  soul  without  an  object  and  without  a  product. 


34  THE  SOLITUDES   OF   MAN. 

The  Solitude  of  Individuality. 

THE  first  specification  to  be  made  of  the  loneliness  of 
human  life  is  that  which  results  from  the  fatal  separate- 
ness  and  hiddenness  of  each  individuality.  The  inner- 
most secret  of  the  self-hood  of  any  being  can  never  be 
communicated,  can  never  be  shown,  to  another.  Only 
little  superficial  fragments  of  our  life  are  revealed,  in 
comparison  with  the  portion  which  moves  on  in  unguessed 
concealment.  That  marvellous  something  which  makes 
us  ourselves,  constitutes  in  us  an  impenetrable  adytum 
where  only  the  Power  that  created  us  can  be  or  look 

Vainly  strives  the  soul  to  mingle 
With  a  being  of  our  kind : 
Since  the  deepest  still  is  single, 
Vainly  hearts  with  hearts  are  twined. 

It  is  a  well-known  fact  in  physics  that  no  two  particles 
of  matter  ever  truly  touch ;  their  contact  is  but  virtual. 
An  ultimate  sphere  of  force  surrounds  each  atom  with  a 
repulsion  absolutely  invincible.  Were  the  total  universe 
made  a  press  and  brought  to  converge  on  two  atoms,  that 
dynamic  investiture  could  not  be  broken  through  and  an 
actual  meeting  effected.  So  with  souls.  Alas,  how 
widely  yawns  the  moat  that  girds  a  human  soul !  Each 
one  knows  its  own  bitterness,  its  own  joy,  its  own  terrors 
and  hopes ;  and  no  foreigner  can  ever  really  touch,  but 
only  more  or  less  nearly  approach,  and  exchange  signals, 
like  distant  ships  in  a  storm. 

O  the  bitter  thought,  to  scan 
All  the  loneliness  of  man  ! 
Nature  by  magnetic  laws 
Circle  unto  circle  draws  : 
But  they  only  touch  when  met, 
Never  mingle,  —  strangers  yet. 

Will  it  evermore  be  thus  — 
Spirits  still  impervious  ? 
Shall  we  never  fairly  stand 
Soul  to  soul  as  hand  to  hand  ? 
Are  the  bounds  eternal  set 
To  retain  us,  strangers  yet  ? 


THE   SOLITUDE   OF    INDIVIDUALITY.  35 

Every  man  wrestles  with  his  fate  not  in  the  public  am- 
phitheatre, but  in  the  profoundest  secrecy.  The  world 
sees  him  only  as  he  comes  forth  from  the  concealed  con- 
flict, a  blooming  victor  or  a  haggard  victim.  We  hate  or 
pity,  we  strive  or  sleep,  we  laugh  or  bleed,  we  sigh  and 
yearn  ;  but  still  in  impassable  separation,  like  unvisiting 
isles  here  and  there  dotting  the  sea'  of  life,  with  sounding 
straits  between  us.  It  is  a  solemn  truth  that,  in  spite  of 
his  manifold  intercourses,  and  after  all  his  gossip  is  done, 
every  man,  in  what  is  most  himself,  and  in  what  is  deep- 
est in  his  spiritual  relationships,  lives  alone.  So  thoroughly 
immersed  is  the  veritable  heart  behind  the  triple  thick- 
ness of  individual  destiny,  insulating  unlikeness  and  sus- 
picion, that  only  the  fewest  genuine  communications  pass 
and  repass ;  rarely  in  unreserved  confidence  is  the  draw- 
bridge lowered,  and  the  portcullis  raised.  Frequently 
the  most  intimate  comrades  of  a  life,  when  the  whole  tale 
of  days  is  told,  know  little  or  nothing  of  each  other ;  so 
successfully  are  our  disguises  worn,  so  closely  are  these 
impervious  masks  of  sense  and  time  and  fortune  fitted  to 
the  being  we  are.  Occasionally,  urged  by  overstress  of  cu- 
riosity and  tenderness,  taking  the  dearest  ones  we  know  by 
the  hand,  we  gaze  beseechingly  into  their  eyes,  sounding 
those  limpid  depths,  if  haply,  reading  the  inmost  soul,  we 
may  discern  there  a  mysterious  thought  and  fondness, 
answering  to  those  so  unspeakably  felt  in  our  own.  But 
again  and  again  we  turn  away,  at  last,  with  a  long-drawn 
breath,  sighing,  alas,  alas !  No  solicitation  can  woo,  no 
power  can  force,  admission  to  that  final  inviolate  sanctu- 
ary of  being  where  the  personality  dwells  in  irreparable 
solitude. 

Were  this  all,  however,  only  the  fewest  persons  would 
be  troubled  by  their  isolation.  There  is  another  experi- 
ence, more  open  to  view,  and  more  oppressive  to  bear, 
that  in  its  sharpness  aches  for  companionship.  What  is 
it  ?  And  what  are  its  conditions  ?  The  solitude  necessa- 
rily belonging  to  the  inmost  essence,  structure,  and  con- 
tents of  every  personality  we  accept  as  a  law  of  our 
being  and  circumstances.  But  to  have  a  peculiar  person- 
ality is  to  know  a  special  loneliness  which  is  a  trial. 


36  THE   SOLITUDES   OF   MAN. 

Peculiarities,  in  the  degree  in  which  they  mark  a  soul, 
make  that  soul  unintelligible  to  others.  And  the  more 
unlike  a  soul  is  to  the  souls  around  it,  as  a  general  thing 
the  greater  desire  it  feels  to  see  itself  reflected  in  them, 
understood  by  them,  sympathized  with  and  cherished  by 
them.  Chamisso's  unique  tale  of  Peter  Schlemihl  or 
the  Man  without  a  Shadow,  powerfully  illustrates  this. 
Wherever  poor  Peter  goes,  his  lack  of  a  shadow  insulates 
him  in  wretched  singularity.  Every  Jew,  curmudgeon, 
hunchback,  roguish  school-boy,  spies  out  his  fatal  defect ; 
and  the  mob  pelt  him  with  mud.  He  wears  away  days 
and  nights  in  his  chamber  in  solitary  sorrow.  He  wan- 
ders on  the  heath  alone  with  his  misery,  and  at  last  be- 
takes himself  to  a  cave  in  the  Thebais. 

It  is  not  simply  for  one  to  be  by  himself  that  makes 
him  feel  lonely.  In  the  quaint  phrasing  of  Sir  Thomas 
Browne,  we  must  confess  that  "  they  whose  thoughts  are 
in  a  fair  and  hurry  within,  are  sometimes  fain  to  retire 
into  company  to  be  out  of  the  crowd  of  themselves." 
When  our  noisy  task  is  done,  and  fellow-laborers  retire, 
and  outer  tools  and  cares  are  dropped,  and  leisure  ushers 
an  inner  world  of  congenial  pursuits,  we  may  truly  say 
we  are  never  more  completely  occupied  than  when  idle. 
So  a  man,  as  Scipio  said  of  himself,  is  really  never  less 
solitary  than  when  physically  alone,  if  his  solitude  be 
filled  with  spiritual  presences  that  give  employment  to  his 
mind,  keep  the  currents  of  consciousness  flowing. 

Who  contemplates,  aspires,  or  dreams,  is  not 
Alone  :  he  peoples  with  rich  thoughts  the  spot. 
The  only  loneliness  —  how  dark  and  blind  !  — 
Is  that  where  fancy  cannot  dupe  the  mind ; 
Where  the  heart,  sick,  despondent,  tired  with  all, 
Looks  joyless  round,  and  sees  the  dungeon  wall. 

So  long  as  the  fluent  and  refluent  tides  of  thought  and  feel- 
ing freely  rise  and  fall,  we  need  not  companions  to  make 
us  happy  :  when  that  condition  fails,  no  society  can  pre- 
vent the  painful  longings  of  our  lonesomeness.  The  frui- 
tion of  a  blessed  communion  is,  in  essence,  simply  a  harmo 
nized  action  and  reaction  of  the  soul  and  what  surrounds 
it.  Be  this  realized,  and  there  is  fellowship  everywhere ; 


1'HE   SOLITUDE    OF    INDIVIDUALITY.  37 

silence  is  melodious,  and  desertion  itself  social.  Then 
out  of  the  tender  exuberance  of  his  heart  one  may  ex- 
claim, 

There  is  a  pleasure  in  the  pathless  woods, 

There  is  a  rapture  on  the  lonely  shore, 

There  is  society  where  none  intrudes,' 

By  the  deep  sea,  and  music  in  its  roar : 

I  love  not  man  the  less  but  nature  more, 

From  these  our  interviews,  in  which  I  steal 

From  all  I  may  be,  or  have  been  before, 

To  mingle  with  the  universe,  and  feel 

What  I  can  ne'er  express,  yet  cannot  all  conceal. 

True  desertedness  and  its  pangs  ^are  experienced  when 
we  want  the  appropriate  nutriment  and  stimulus  for  our 
faculties  and  affections,  fit  dischargers  and  outlets  for  their 
fulness.  It  is  to  miss  loved  objects,  the  wonted  excitants 
and  channels  of  our  souls,  and  to  have  no  sufficing  new 
ones  in  their  stead,  and  to  feel  that  none  of  the  people 
around  understand  us  and  feel  with  us.  The  exiled 
Switzer  pines  in  a  foreign  clime  for  his  native  mountains, 
the  sublime  prospect,  the  familiar  legendary  spots,  the 
upland  breeze,  the  stimulant  variety,  the  boundless  free- 
dom :  and  as  he  remembers,  he  weeps  till  his  heart 
breaks.  The  soul,  too,  has  its  own  deeper  homesickness. 
An  unappropriated  enthusiasm  ;  a  full  heart  aching  for  a 
vent  and  a  return,  and  finding  none  ;  a  spirit  thwarted 
of  its  proper  action  and  reaction  :  —  this  is  the  painful 
essence  of  solitude,  the  live  vacuum  of  lonesomeness. 

Not  the  mere  presence  of  numbers  can  heal  this  spiritual 
pain.  There  is  no  solitude  in  the  world  so  heavy  as  that 
of  a  great  city  to  the  sensitive  stranger  who  stands  in  its 
streets,  and  sees  the  endless  tides  drift  by,  till  he  turns 
away,  feeling,  Of  all  these  multitudes  hurrying  past,  not 
one,  not  one,  cares  anything  for  me  !  Appropriate  objects 
of  thought  and  affection,  if  present  in  imagination,  may 
furnish  satisfying  employment  for  the  activities  of  the  soul, 
however  far  they  are  removed  in  fact.  The  wild  bird 
whose  little  heart  throbs  instinctively  towards  her  nest 
and  broodlets,  is  happy,  as,  all  alone,  she  cuts  the  desert 
air  towards  home  with  a  worm  in  her  mouth.  Galileo, 


38  THE   SOLITUDES   OF   MAN. 

gazing  at  the  constellations  through  the  grating  of  his 
cell,  and  feeling  the  fellowship  of  the  illustrious  conquer- 
ors of  science  in  all  ages,  was  less  alone  than  when  he 
knelt  amid  the  scowling  throng  of  inquisitors  to  retract 
the  truth.  Not  visible  approximation,  but  conscious  affin- 
ity, is  the  chief  condition  of  inter-communication.  What 
good  is  it  that  prison  wards  are  in  juxtaposition,  and  that 
the  stars  are  thick  ?  As  well  for  each  other  not  to  exist, 
as  to  exist  hopelessly  sundered  from  knowledge  and  sym- 
pathy. The  king  and  the  footman  may  consort  as  the 
lion  and  the  jackal :  but  bodily  presence  is  not  friendship  ; 
exchange  of  command  and  obsequiousness  between  su- 
perior and  inferior  is  not  the  satisfaction  of  the  natures 
of  both  in  common  communion.  Unlike  souls,  though 
crowded  together  in  ranks,  may  all  the  while  be  as  lonely 
as  the  rows  of  funeral  urns  in  a  columbarium.  John 
Foster  writes  in  his  journal,  "  Relapsed  into  the  solitaire 
feeling  of  being  a  monad ;  a  self-originating,  sad  and 
retiring  sentiment  which  seems  to  say,  '  No  heart  will 
receive  me,  no  heart  needs  me.'  "  Again  he  writes,  in 
the  same  journal,  "  Feel  this  insuperable  individuality. 
Something  seems  to  say,  '  Come  away ;  I  am  but  a 
gloomy  ghost  among  the  living  and  the  happy.  There  is 
no  need  of  me ;  I  shall  never  be  loved  as  I  wish  to  be 
loved,  and  as  I  could  love.'  I  will  converse  with  my 
friends  in  solitude  ;  then  they  seem  to  be  within  my  soul ; 
when  I  am  with  them,  they  seem  to  be  without  it." 

The  grave-digger,  wholly  by  himself,  shovelling  up  the 
skull  of  poor  Yorick,  was  in  a  jovial  entertainment  of 
merry  thoughts.  Hamlet,  isolated  by  his  sad  endow- 
ments, shaking  his  disposition  with  thoughts  beyond  the 
reaches  of  his  soul,  moved  about  in  the  busy  press  of 
ladies  and  courtiers,  appallingly  alone.  To  a  great  na- 
ture, deeply  in  earnest,  frivolous  and  shallow  company 
makes  desertion  twice  desolate,  as  certain  sounds  serve 
but  to  make  stillness  seem  doubly  still.  The  tenacious 
tenants  of  holy  moods  and  mighty  tasks  have  little  in 
common  with  the  fugitive  hoverers  who  flutter  in  and  out 
of  every  whim  that  rises.  Any  exceptional  deprivation, 
?ift  or  experience,  either  in  kind  or  degree,  in  proportion 


THE   SOLITUDE    OF    INDIVIDUALITY.  39 

to  its  distinctive  intensity,  separates,  —  emphasizes  its 
subject  with  solitariness.  The  loss  of  any  sense  by  man, 
as  that  of  hearing,  lifts  a  sad,  dark  barrier  between  him 
and  his  fellows.  The  solitude  of  blindness  is  pre-emi- 
nently deep  and  oppressive.  And  it  is  pathetic  to  think 
how  many  great  men  have,  like  Homer  and  Milton,  had 
the  windows  of  their  souls  thus  closed.  Galileo,  in  his 
seventy-third  year,  wrote  to  one  of  his  correspondents  : 
"  Alas !  your  dear  friend  has  become  irreparably  blind. 
These  heavens,  this  earth,  this  universe,  which  by  won- 
derful observation  I  had  enlarged  a  thousand  times  be- 
yond the  belief  of  past  ages,  are  henceforth  shrunk  into 
the  narrow  space  which  I  myself  occupy.  So  it  pleases 
God  ;  it  shall,  therefore,  please  me  also."  Handel  passed 
the  last  seven  years  of  his  life  in  total  blindness,  in  the 
gloom  of  the  porch  of  death.  How  he  and  the  specta- 
tors must  have  felt  when  the  great  composer,  in  seventeen 
hundred  and  fifty-three,  "  stood,  pale  and  tremulous,  with 
his  sightless  eyeballs  turned  towards  a  tearful  concourse 
of  people,  while  his  sad  song  from  Samson,  '  Total  eclipse,  y 
no  sun,  no  moon  ! '  was-delivered." 

Nothing  can  be  more  lonely  than  the  chief  characters 
in  literary  fiction,  with  exceptional  endowments,  aims  and 
achievements,  such  as  Prometheus,  Faust,  St.  Leon,  Za- 
noni.  Hawthorne  has  expressed  a  kindred  thought,  with 
his  usual  vigorous  felicity.  "  The  perception  of  an  infi- 
nite shivering  solitude,  amid  which  we  cannot  come  close 
enough  to  human  beings  to  be  wanned  by  them,  and 
where  they  turn  to  cold,  chilly  shapes  of  mist,  is  one  of 
the  most  forlorn  results  of  any  accident,  misfortune, 
crime,  or  peculiarity  of  character,  that  puts  an  individual 
ajar  with  the  world."  Hawthorne  was  himself  a  lonely 
man  afflicted  with  a  morbid  shyness.  He  had  a  preter- 
natural insight  into  the  secrets,  especially  the  pathological 
secrets,  of  human  nature.  That  high  idea  of  himself, 
intensely  emotional,  which  with  his  genius  he  could  not 
fail  to  have,  was  associated  with  a  feeling  of  inability  to 
impress  it  properly  and  see  it  reflected  in  others.  In 
such  an  example,  extreme  shyness,  with  all  its  miserable 
torture,  is  no  proof  of  pride  or  egotism  in  its  subject.  It 


40  THE   SOLITUDES   OF   MAN. 

simply  proves  the  sharp  power  with  which  a  sub-conscious 
occupation  with  his  reflection  in  others  possesses  him. 
It  is  that  he  has  extraordinary  sympathy,  not  extraordinary 
selfishness.  But  it  is,  unfortunately,  a  viscid  and  attached, 
not  a,  sparkling  and  free,  sympathy.  And  it  is  one  of  the 
most  fatal  barriers  to  surrender,  fusion,  and  joy  in  com 
pany. 

The  Solitude  of  Grief. 

THE  most  common  and  obvious  of  the  secluding  expe- 
riences of  man  is  grief.  Bereavement,  in  its  essence,  is 
always  the  loss  of  some  object  accustomed  to  draw  forth 
(."he  soothing  or  cheeking  reactions  of  the  soul.  The  ac- 
tivity thus  deprived  of  its  wonted  vent  becomes  a  source 
of  pain.  Turned  back  upon  itself,  it  aches  with  baffled 
yearning ;  or,  forced  upon  objects  unfitted  to  the  fine 
habit  of  its  affection,  it  feels  desecrated  and  agonized. 
A  necessary  sense  of  loneliness  is  therefore  associated 
with  every  deep  form  of  grief.  Amidst  all  its  changing 
elements  a  feeling  of  desertion  is  the  steady  character- 
istic. Those  who  have  stood  by  the  death-bed  of  a  be- 
loved being  whose  departure  from  the  earth  seemed  to 
leave  the  earth  poor  and  cold,  can  never  forget  the  deso- 
lating sense  of  solitude  that  came  when  the  parting 
breath  went.  The  soul  of  the  dying  seems  borne  away 
from  us  on  the  long-drawn  sigh  of  his  last  fondly  whis- 
pered farewell,  as  on  a  wave  sweeping  him  far  up  the 
heavenly  beach,  but  leaving  us  behind  to  struggle  alone 
in  the  dark  flood. 

The  removal  of  customary  objects  of  love,  hope,  and 
care,  —  the  blasting  of  a  cherished  enterprise,  the  decay 
of  a  once  inspiring  faith,  —  around  which  our  thoughts 
danced  in  melodious  measure  "and  the  currents  of  our 
emotions  ran  merrily,  —  causes  a  revulsion,  leaves  behind 
a  wretched  emptiness  and  a  more  wretched  fulness,  with 
no  joining  channel  between,  which  compose  the  very  sub- 
stance and  anguish  of  lonesome  sorrow.  Such  an  expe- 
rience is  a  natural  consequence  of  a  great  defeat,  flinging 
the  deep  permanent  shadow  of  disappointment  athwart 


ratf    SOLi'iUDE   OF    GRIEF.  4! 

the  landscape  of  after-life.  It  is  difficult  to  conceive  of 
a  denser  internal  solitude  than  that  which  might  enwrap 
a  defeated  general,  a  captive  king  or  queen,  borne  in  tri- 
umph over  the  Appian  Way,  through  a  fluctuating  ocean 
of  Romans.  Paulus  yEmilius,  five  days  before  enjoying 
the  most  brilliant  triumph  Rome  had  ever  seen,  lost  one 
of  his  two  younger  sons ;  and  three  days  after  the  tri- 
umph he  lost  the  other.  He  was  borne  like  a  god  in  his 
car,  through  miles  of  glittering  and  shouting  humanity, 
amidst  endless  throngs  of  captives  and  chariots  loaded 
with  spoils,  —  his  heart  breaking  within  him.  Past 
glory  and  bliss  set  in  an  exile's  memory  against  present 
shame  and  woe,  personal  loss  and  sorrow  contrasted  with 
public  gain  and  exultation,  is  the  very  separation  of  sep- 
aration. Such  an  image  of  loneliness,  hard  to  surpass, 
is  presented  in  Keats's  picture  of  old  Kronos,  the  father 
of  the  gods,  dethroned  and  banished  by  the  rebellious 
young  Zeus ;  — 

Deep  in  the  shady  sadness  of  a  vale 
Sate  gray-haired  Saturn,  quiet  as  a  stone. 

What  an  eloquent  image  of  grief,  and  what  a  tragic  pic- 
ture of  loneliness,  is  the  prophet  Jeremiah,  with  white 
beard  and  broken  harp,  sitting  on  the  ruins  of  Jerusalem, 
when  the  heathen  had  ravaged  the  city  of  his  idolatry, 
and  the  darling  hope  of  his  life  was  blasted  !  When  out 
of  this  bereft  and  forsaken  lot  a  voice  of  lamentation  is 
heard,  whose  articulations  are  sobs,  no  wonder  they  sound 
to  the  vulgar  revellers  of  the  world  as  the  accents  of  a 
strange  tongue  which  they  cannot  understand.  No  won- 
der, either,  that  the  delicate  and  profound  children  of 
misfortune  and  sadness  should  shrink  from  exposing  their 
afflictions  to  the  superficial  heirs  of  success  and  gayety, 
but  should  rather  flee  into  retirement,  there  to  ease  their 
pangs  with  tears,  and  with  exercises  of  trust  and  prayer 
charm  their  souls  into  the  embrace  of  nature  and  God. 
Here  we  reach  the  loneliness  of  the  closet,  where  no 
echo  of  the  roistering  crew  or  the  toiling  crowd  pene- 
trates ;  a  retreat  sacred  to  sad  memory,  healing  thought, 
and  pious  rites.  I  have  seen,  in  an  Alpine  pass,  a  slow 


42  THE   SOLITUDES   OF   MAN. 

deep-tinted  mist  wind  itself  around  the  cruel  crags,  splin- 
tered peaks  which  stood  like  so  many  horrid  tusks  goring 
the  sky,  —  wind  itself  around  them  till  they  seemed 
couches  soft  enough  for  angels  to  furl  their  wings  to  re- 
pose on.  So,  in  its  patient  religious  loneliness,  does  the 
rich  sensibility  of  genius  gather  beautiful  associations 
around  the  lacerating  points  and  passes  of  grief,  robbing 
them  of  their  harshness. 

But  besides  the  solitude  shed  around  the  afflicted  by 
their  inward  grief,  they  seek  seclusion  on  account  of  the 
exquisite  state  of  their  sensibilities,  freshly  torn  and  una- 
ble to  encounter  the  miscellaneous  exposures  of  society. 
The  grieved  heart,  like  the  wounded  deer,  retreats  into 
solitude  to  bleed.  Sometimes  it  is  cruel,  ah !  sometimes 
it  is  kind,  to  leave  the  unhappy  alone  with  his  unhappi- 
ness.  The  subject  of  a  severe  sorrow,  the  fibres  of  his 
spirit  rent  from  their  habituated  clingings,  shrinking  in 
self-defence  from  every  coarse  contact,  courts  the  secrecy 
of  his  chamber,  of  lonely  walks,  or  wraps  himself  in  the 
protection  of  an  unnoticing  absorption.  The  mind 
bruised  by  the  blows  of  calamity,  the  tendrils  of  its 
affections  hanging  lacerated,  is  so  susceptible  in  its  sore- 
ness that  it  cannot  bear,  even  in  thought,  the  collisions 
of  the  careless.  To  its  exacerbated  tenderness  every 
breath  is  a  shock,  every  touch  torture.  Under  these  cir- 
cumstances the  instinctive  safeguard  is  the  shelter  of 
silent  loneliness.  It  has  well  been  said,  "  Solitude  is  the 
country  of  the  unhappy."  On  the  death  of  his  darling 
daughter  Cicero  fled  from  Rome  to  a  still  retreat  whence 
he  wrote  to  his  friend  Atticus  :  "  Nothing  can  be  more 
delightful  than  this  solitude,  nothing  more  charming 
than  this  country  place,  the  neighboring  shore,  and  the 
view  of  the  sea.  In  the  lonely  island  of  Astura,  on  the 
shore  of  the  Tyrrhenian  Sea,  no  human  being  disturbs 
me  ;  and  when  early  in  the  morning  I  retire  to  the  leafy 
recesses  of  some  thick  and  wild  wood,  I  do  not  leave  it 
till  the  evening.  Next  to  my  Atticus  nothing  is  so  dear 
to  me  as  solitude,  in  which  I  hold  communion  with  phi- 
losophy, although  often  interrupted  by  my  tears."  That 
social  usage  which  gives  the  afflicted  an  investiture  em 


THE   SOLITUDE   OF   GRIEF.  43 

blematic  of  their  grief,  happily  seconds  this  instinct  by 
enabling  them,  in  a  degree,  to  carry  their  solitude  with 
them,  even  through  street  and  market,  in  a  mute  appeal 
to  all  considerate  observers  for  a  softened  behavior  in 
their  presence.  Mourners,  sphered  by  their  dark  garb  in 
a  sacred  and  touching  solitude,  glide  through  the  crowd, 
shielded  from  whatever  is  unseemly,  no  sharp  sound  reach- 
ing them  save  as  muffled  and  blunted,  everything  frolic- 
some or  boisterous  growing  reverently  sober  as  they 
approach.  Before  the  van  of  the  army  of  grief  the  rude 
cold  waves  of  the  world  of  mirth  and  harshness  divide, 
as  if  invisibly  struck  by  a  wand,  and  let  the  silent  ranks 
pass,  untouched,  between. 

Not  only,  however,  is  the  afflicted  sufferer  made  lonely 
by  the  deprivation  of  the  cherished  objects  of  fruition 
whose  loss  grieves  him.  And  not  only  does  the  shrinking 
of  his  hurt  feelings  from  every  frequented  scene  to  court 
the  curative  calm  and  balm  of  silence  and  repose  make 
him  feel  solitary.  There  is  still  another  element  of  de- 
sertedness  and  pain  in  the  case  ;  namely  this.  Any  kind 
or  degree  of  experience  which  others  cannot  enter  into 
with  us  leaves  us  alone.  And  it  is  the  very  characteristic 
of  a  keen  and  massive  grief  that  it  takes  its  subjects  into 
depths  where  the  untried  are  unwilling  to  follow.  Thus 
is  it  that 

Misery  doth  part 
The  flux  of  company. 

The  mother  whose  only  child  has  been  borne  across  the 
shadowed  threshold  into  the  mysterious  Nevermore,  miss- 
ing with  unspeakable  woe  the  darling  nestler,  as  she  be- 
thinks her  that  the  bright  eyes  are  darkened,  the  sweet 
voice  hushed,  the  soft  lips  closed  and  cold  forever,  in  her 
convulsive  desolateness  feels  as  if  all  were  gone  :  and, 
since  nobody  else  can  quite  feel  so,  she  is  alone. 

Alone  !  —  that  worn  out  word, 
So  idly  spoken,  and  so  coldly  heard  : 
Yet  all  that  poets  sing,  and  grief  hath  known 
Of  hope  laid  waste,  knells  in  that  word,  ALONE  ! 

In  the  glowing  imagination  of  one  person  rises  a  goal 


44  THE   SOLITUDES   OF   MAN. 

decked  with  a  fragrant  garland  :  in  the  pensive  memory 
of  another  stands  a  perpetual  bier.  How  can  there  be 
any  assuasive  communion  between  those  whose  states  and 
impulses  are  so  opposed  ?  The  widow  of  Herder,  on  the 
anniversary  of  his  death  wrote  to  their  dear  common 
friend,  Jean  Paul  Richter  :  —  "I  am  alone  to-day,-  and  in 
the  other  world.  It  is  the  second  of  May."  Could  any 
Babylonian  be  expected  to  enter  into  the  feelings  of  the 
expatriated  Israelites  when,  weeping,  they  hung  their 
harps  on  the  willows  by  the  banks  of  Babel,  and  declared 
themselves  unable  to  sing  the  songs  of  the  Lord  in  a 
strange  land  ?  The  Siberian  exile  journeying  over  the 
homeless  plateau,  wrapped  in  sables,  on  his  huge  snow- 
shoes  plodding  wearily  through  the  petrifying  desolation, 
thinking  of  home,  encounters  no  one  capable  of  repro- 
ducing his  emotions  and  reflecting  them  to  him  in  reliev- 
ing sympathy.  Nor  is  the  patriot,  banished  to  fairer 
lands,  welcomed  into  the  hospitable  circles  of  a  gentler 
clime  than  his  own,  much  less  lonesome.  For  it  is  not 
the  absolute,  but  it  is  the  relative,  what  is  possessed  or 
missed  in  his  consciousness,  that  makes  man  blithe  or  mel- 
ancholy. In  meeting  the  great  agonies  of  experience 
there  must  be  solitude.  For  the  commonalty  of  mankind 
and  the  average  hours  of  life  are  alien  from  the  transcend- 
ent touches  of  woe,  incompetent  to  feel  fitly  for  their 
victims.  There  every  soul  that  reaches  knows  its  own 
bitterness,  and  strangers  intermeddle  not.  The  wife, 
robbed  of  the  intimate  companion  of  her  existence,  on 
whom  she  leaned,  with  whom  she  associated  every  joy  and 
sorrow,  hope  and  fear, —  clad  in  black,  bending  in  monu- 
mental memory  by  the  thought  of  him  with  tears  and 
sighs,  lonely  as  the  weeping  willow  that  droops  over  a 
tomb,  her  voice  mournful  as  the  breeze  that  complains  in 
its  branches  at  midnight,  —  feels  the  whisper  of  frivolous 
tongues  as  an  intolerable  burden,  the  presence  of  a  throng 
as  a  degradation  and  an  insult.  The  tender  Robertson, 
on  the  death  of  a  young  daughter,  wrote  to  one  of  his 
friends  :  —  "I  have  just  returned  from  putting  my  little 
beautiful  one  myself  into  her  grave,  after  a  last  look  at  her 
placid  countenance  lying  in  her  coffin.  It  was  by  starlight, 


THE    SOLITUDE   OF    GRIEF.  45 

with  only  the  sexton  present ;  but  it  was  more  congenial  to 
my  heart  to  bury  her  so  than  in  the  midst  of  a  crowd,  in  the 
glaring  daylight,  with  a  service  gabbled  over  her."  He 
does  not  use  the  word  gabbled  in  any  disrespect  to  the 
service,  but  as  a  vent  for  his  intense  feeling  of  the  sacri- 
lege publicity  would  be  to  the  holiness  of  his  grief. 

With  the  exception  of  rapturous  love,  there  is  no  sym- 
pathy in  the  world  so  intense  and  profound  as  that  be- 
tween those  who  have  known  the  same  griefs.  One  of 
the  chief  services  the  highest  souls  render  to  lower  ones 
is  to  reveal  to  these  their  own  sorrows,  not  experienced 
in  bleak  and  bitter  nakedness,  but  associated  with  nobler 
strengths,  comforts,  and  supports.  What  a  divinely  sol- 
acing music  is  mixed  with  the  griefs  of  humanity,  as  their 
echoes  come  back  from  the  solitary  heart  of  Jesus ! 
There  is  a  Church  of  Grief  whose  members  deeply  and 
tenderly  know  each  other.  A  great  element  of  power  in 
the  bond  between  the  afflicted  Christian  and  the  Saviour 
is  their  fellowship  in  suffering.  "  He  was  tried  in  all 
points  like  as  we  are."  The  penitent,  in  grief  and  guilt, 
filled  with  devotional  awe,  lonely  amidst  the  worshippers 
that  crowd  the  cathedral,  sees  the  lonely  face  of  Christ 
lifted  on  the  crucifix,  and  his  heart  leaps  towards  it  with 
a  spasm  of  worshipping  sympathy. 

A  person  of  great  gifts  but  with  a  wearied  mind  and 
a  wounded  heart,  profoundly  convinced  of  the  vanity  of 
worldly  honors  and  pleasures,  and  of  the  calming  efficacy 
of  divine  contemplations,  resolved  to  enter  on  a  monastic 
life  by  joining  the  Port  Royalists,  and  on  doing  so,  laid 
the  following  poem  on  the  altar  of  their  retreat. 

O  ye  dark  forests,  in  whose  sombre  shades 

Night  finds  a  noonday  lair, 
Silence  a  sacred  refuge  !  to  your  glades 

A  stranger  worn  with  care 
And  weary  of  life's  jostle,  would  repair. 
He  asks  no  medicine  for  his  fond  heart's  pain; 
He  breaks  your  stillness  with  no  piercing  cry ; 

He  comes  not  to  complain, 

He  only  comes  to  die. 

To  die  among  the  busy  haunts  of  men 
Were  to  betray  his  woe  ; 


4.6  THE   SOLITUDES   OF   MAN. 

But  here  these  woods  and  this  sequestered  glen 

No  trace  of  suffering  show. 

Here  would  he  die  that  none  his  love  may  know. 
Ye  need  not  dread  his  weeping,  —  tears  are  vain  ; 
Here  let  him  perish  and  unheeded  lie ; 

He  comes  not  to  complain, 

He  only  comes  to  die. 

Many  poor  hearts,  long  struggling  in  bitter  forlornness 
between  thwarted  aspirations  and  dissatisfying  reali- 
ties, at  last  break,  and  go  down,  unpitied,  unnoticed. 
Sometimes,  borne  out  into  the  wilderness  of  grief  without 
a  comrade  to  stanch  our  wounds,  we  are  tempted  to  say. 
There  is  no  other  gulf  so  wide  and  cold  as  that  which 
flows  between  heart  and  heart.  Would  you  gain  deliver- 
ance from  this  grievous  loneliness  ?  Seek  it  not,  as  so 
many  do,  by  lulling  those  importunate  longings  to  rest  in 
the  dismal  shade  of  oblivion.  Neither  seek  to  escape  by 
a  wilful  avoidance  of  them  in  the  rush  and  clamor  of  ex- 
ternals. These  are  artificial  expedients,  temporary  and 
violent,  and  must  ever  prove,  at  last,  in  the  deepest  truth, 
unwholesome  and  calamitous.  The  normal  and  divine 
procedure  is  not  to  suppress  nor  to  elude  grief,  but  to 
confront,  cure,  and  improve  it ;  transforming  it  into  some- 
thing higher,  and  passing  on  to  purer  substance  and 
sweeter  blessing  in  its  assimilated  and  transfigured  might. 
So  shall  we  hereafter  retrace  in  our  successive  sorrows 
the  seasonal  stages  of  our  growth,  and  look  back  on  our 
wounds  converted  into  ornaments.  So  shall  we  cast  off 
sufferings,  hardships,  misfortunes,  and  suspend  them 
along  the  ascending  way  of  life,  to  be  used  as  rounds  and 
steps  for  climbing  into  more  magnanimous  comprehen- 
sion, firmer  tenderness,  loftier  being.  Then  the  blows  of 
time  and  fate  will  leave  on  our  souls  not  disfiguring  scars 
but  inserted  buds,  inoculating  us  to  bear  diviner  fruit 
The  loneliness  of  an  overwhelmed  grief,  as  destitute  of 
religious  faith  as  of  human  sympathy,  is  like  that  which 

Broods 

In  winter  nights  o'er  frost-bound  solitudes,  — 
Darkness,  and  ice,  and  stillness,  all  in  one  ; 
A  silence  without  life,  a  withering  without  sun. 
But  o'er  that  silence,  when,  at  night's  full  noon, 
Through  breathless  cloud,  shimmers  the  glorious  moon,— 


THE   SOLITUDE   OF    LOVE.  47 

the  pale  illumination  of  the  frozen  forest  is  like  the  beau- 
tifying light  shed  on  sorrow  by  religious  belief  and  re- 
solve. 

The  Solitude  of  Love. 

VERY  different  from  the  forlorn  retirement  of  grief,  but 
sometimes  almost  as  exclusive  in  its  kind,  is  the  solitude 
of  love.  That  contrasts  with  this  as  the  loneliness  of 
the  closet  with  the  loneliness  of  the  grove.  There,  is 
the  oppression  of  an  imprisoning  limit ;  here,  the  free- 
dom of  abounding  impulse ;  but  in  both  alike,  an  isolat- 
ing quality,  a  consecrating  intensity,  an  insuperable 
repugnance  to  the  indiscriminate  intercourse  of  the 
world.  In  both,  when  at  their  height,  the  desire  to  be 
alone  is  so  keen  that  the  subject  of  the  experience  feels 
the  presence  of  a  single  person  to  be  equivalent  to  the 
presence  of  a  multitude.  Then,  as  Ovid  said,  Nos  duo 
turba  sum  us. 

Shall  I  whisper  aloud, 
That  we  two  make  a  crowd  ? 

With  all  unwontedly  earnest  love  mingles  an  obscure  fore- 
boding of  wreck  and  loss,  bereavement  and  agony,  to 
come.  On  its  upper  surface  affection  admits  acquaint- 
ances, to  see  their  smiles,  and  to  hear  their  words  re- 
echoed ;  but  in  this  lower  deep,  where  the  wonderful 
omens  move,  it  excludes  curiosity,  and  even  sympathy, 
and  broods  alone  with  its  unsharable  bliss  or  its  strange 
presentiments  of  ill.  Whether  so  rich  a  boon  is  felt  to 
be  unsuited  to  the  conditions  of  earth,  too  fair  to  last, 
sure  to  provoke  some  envious  power  to  blast  it,  I  know 
not.  But  truly  so  it  is,  that  the  finer  any  experience  of 
love  becomes  in  our  human  relations,  the  more  surely  it 
is  haunted  by  a  formless  fear,  dispensing,  where  it  pre- 
vails, an  air  of  solitude,  a  lonesome  misgiving,  like  that 
derived  from  the  undefined  Fate  which  fills  the  back- 
ground of  a  Greek  tragedy. 

There  is  a  bitter  loneliness  resulting  from  the  absence 
and  need  of  love,  as  well  as  a  sweet  loneliness  resulting 


4»  THE   SOLITUDES   OF    MAN. 

fiom  the  presence  of  it.  Few  have  felt  this  more  sharply 
than  Charlotte  Bronte ;  and  she  has  described  it :  — • 
"  Sometimes  when  I  wake  in  the  morning,  and  know  that 
Solitude,  Remembrance,  and  Longing  are  to  be  almost  my 
sole  companions  all  day  through,  —  that  at  night  I  shall 
go  to  bed  with  them,  —  that  they  will  long  keep  me  sleep- 
less, —  that  next  morning  I  shall  wake  to  them  again,  — • 
I  have  a  heavy  heart  of  it."  Charles  Lamb,  the  exquis- 
ite affectionateness  of  whose  nature,  with  his  poverty  and 
many  bitter  trials,  made  him  especially  susceptible  of 
such  an  experience,  shows  us  a  glimpse  of  his  sufferings 
from  it  in  the  poem  he  addressed  to  his  friend  Lloyd, 
when  the  latter  sought  him  out  in  London,  "  alone,  ob- 
scure, without  a  friend,  a  cheerless,  solitary  thing."  He 
says :  — 

For  this  a  gleam  of  random  joy 

Hath  flushed  my  unaccustomed  cheek ; 

And,  with  an  o'ercharged  bursting  heart, 
I  ieel  the  thoughts  I  cannot  speak. 

O,  sweet  are  all  the  Muses'  lays, 
And  sweet  the  charm  of  matin  bird ;  — 

'T  was  long  since  these  estranged  ears 
The  sweeter  voice  of  friend  had  heard. 

George  MacDonald,  referring  to  an  English  traveller 
among  the  Swiss  mountains,  who  snobbishly  regarded  all 
but  himself  as  intruders,  well  says  :  —  "  Was  there  not 
plenty  of  room  upon  those  wastes  for  him  and  them  ?  Love 
will  provide  a  solitude  in  the  crowd ;  and  dislike  will  fill 
the  desert  itself  with  unpleasant  forms." 

Jesus  is  the  supreme  example  of  that  loneliness  which 
is  felt  as  a  consequence  of  the  greatness  of  the  love  with- 
in and  the  smallness  of  the  love  without.  "  The  foxes," 
he  sighed,  "have  holes,  and  the  birds  of  the  air  have 
nests,  but  the  Son  of  Man  hath  not  where  to  lay  his 
head."  And  when  the  Pharisee,  at  whose  table  he  dined, 
complained  of  the  toleration  he  showed  for  the  sinful 
woman,  what  a  world  of  lonely  and  sorrowing  tenderness 
is  unveiled  in  his  reply,  —  "  Simon,  thou  gavest  me  no 
kiss ;  but  this  woman  hath  not  ceased  to  kiss  my  feet. 
Wherefore  I  say  unto  thee,  her  sins,  which  are  many,  are 
forgiven  :  for  she  loved  much." 


THE   SOLITUDE   OF   LOVE.  49 

Vivid  and  profound  love  shrinks  from  communicating 
its  confidences,  lest  injury  be  done  them,  lest  their  hallow- 
edness  be  profaned.  Their  delicacy  is  too  ethereal  for  a 
rough  hand ;  their  vestal  bloom  is  too  holy  for  unconse- 
crated  spectators.  Grief,  in  its  soreness,  allows  only  the 
tender  themes  that  are  wonted  and  soothing  to  touch 
its  hurt  fibres ;  love,  in  its  scrupulous  sacredness,  permits 
only  the  trusted  and  adored  object  to  come  near  and  read 
its  confessions.  The  priest  alone  can  be  admitted  to  the 
shrine.  Numa  felt  not  lonely  in  his  cave,  but  when  he 
returned  among  the  citizens.  Interviews  with  any  sacred 
Egeria  tend  to  unfit  us  for  ordinary  fellowships.  The 
dedicated  privacy  of  a  pure  and  modest  heart  cannot 
expose  its  shaded  secrets  to  vulgar  lookers.  The  more 
pertinaciously  they  explore,  the  more  bashfully  it  shrinks 
and  veils.  It  can  calmly  brook  no  eye  save  that  of  God 
and  the  elected  one.  Therefore,  around  this  most  choice 
and  sensitive  experience  there  ever  spreads  a  kind  of 
solitude.  It  is  true  that  the  experience  resulting  from 
an  access  of  fervent  affection  often  has  another  aspect. 
Its  expansiveness  makes  it  many  times  seem  emphatically 
social.  "  The  heart,  enlarged  by  its  new  sympathy  with 
one,  grows  bountiful  to  all."  Nevertheless  the  phase  of 
the  experience  here  insisted  on  is  true  too.  Love  affects 
not  the  dusty  highway,  but  the  woodland  path.  It  retires 
to  brood  over  its  thick-clustering  and  honeyed  thoughts. 
The  maiden,  with  the  picture  of  her  lover,  runs  not  into 
the  crowd  to  gaze  on  it,  but  wanders  into  some  umbra- 
geous nook,  where  imagination  may  feed  on  itself,  nor 
fear  rebuke  from  the  ring-dove  balancing  on  yonder 
bough,  or  betrayal  from  that  brook,  the  babbling  tongue 
of  the  glen. 

Solitude  is  not  only  the  sanctuary,  it  is  also  the  nur- 
sery, of  sentiment ;  where,  brooding  over  itself  in  quiet, 
and  sympathetically  brooding  over  whatsoever  is  friendly 
to  it,  it  grows  deeper,  and  draws  around  itself  an  ever- 
enlarging  mass  of  nutritious  associations.  Petrarch,  the 
high  Laureate  of  this  feeling,  sings  : 

From  hill  to  hill  I  roam,  from  thought  to  thought, 
With  Love  my  guide  ;  the  beaten  path  I  fly, 

3  & 


50  THE    SOLITUDES   OF   MAN. 

For  there  in  vain  the  tranquil  life  is  sought. 

If  'mid  the  waste  well  forth  a  lonely  rill, 

Or  deep  embosomed  a  low  valley  lie, 

In  its  calm  shade  my  trembling  heart  is  still ; 

And  there,  if  Love  so  will, 

I  smile,  or  weep,  or  fondly  hope,  or  fear. 

That  which  is  true  of  sentiment  in  general  is  true  of  a 
just  and  genuine  piety  in  particular.  It  is  the  shallow 
that  is  garrulous,  —  the  deep  is  silent.  The  name  of 
Christ,  the  idea  of  Deity,  the  sense  of  eternity,  the  antici- 
pation of  heaven,  the  mysteries  of  sin  and  regeneration, 
are  things  too  solemn  and  sublime  to  be  bandied  from 
mouth  to  mouth  in  technical  debates  and  conventional 
conferences.  Cleaving  to  the  marrow  of  life,  to  the 
dividing  asunder  of  spirit  and  flesh,  they  fitly  appropriate 
to  themselves  the  most  select  and  awful  moments  of  med- 
itation, the  most  secret  and  sanctified  moods  of  affection, 
when  not  a  taint  of  passion  befouls  the  heart,  and  the 
fewest  vestiges  of  earth  linger  on  the  mind.  It  is  an 
impressive  fact  that  the  subject  of  a  religious  conversion, 
in  the  freshness  of  his  experience,  instinctively  shrinks 
from  the  world,  seeks  seclusion  on  some  pilgrimage,  or  in 
some  convent.  The  ideas  of  God,  purity,  judgment,  the 
feelings  of  remorse,  sanctification,  joy,  which  have  come 
irfo  his  soul  with  such  revolutionizing  power,  are  too 
stupendous  for  gossip.  They  withdraw  him.  He  knows 
by  instinct  that  he  can  maintain  himself  at  their  height 
only  in  solitude.  The  Christian  convert  flies  to  the  mon- 
astery, to  feed  and  hedge  his  faith  with  a  guardian  ritual ; 
the  Buddhist  devotee  betakes  him  to  a  sanctuary  of  the 
contemplative  Buddha,  to  muse  and  aspire ;  the  Brah- 
manical  ascetic  journeys  on,  over  hill  and  plain,  his  alms 
dish  in  one  hand,  his  staff  in  the  other,  alone,  silent, 
buried  in  a  thought.  Who  that  has  any  appreciation  of 
divine  things,  of  what  is  becoming,  can  bear  to  drag  these 
innermost  sanctities  into  the  light,  where  a  thousand  dis- 
cordant scrutinizers  are  gazing  and  listening,  eager  to 
handle  and  to  criticise  ?  No  soul,  save  a  hard  and  nar- 
row one,  can  be  otherwise  than  full  of  lonely  awe  when 
confionting  that  thought  of  God  before  which  the  globe 


THE   SOLITUDE   OF   LOVE.  51 

I's  but  a  bubble,  and  the  sky  a  shadow.  Plotinus  defined 
the  fruition  of  piety  as  "  a  flight  of  the  alone  to  the 
Alone."  We  always  think  of  the  oracles  of  the  gods  as 
dropping  in  grove  and  grotto,  not  in  street  and  stadium. 
Lenau  wrote  to  his  friend,  Anastasius  Griin,  from  the 
summit  of  the  Alps,  —  "  Solitude  is  the  mother  of  God  in 
man."  When  Jesus  would  pray  he  "  went  apart  into  a 
mountain."  Even  to  his  dearest  disciples,  and  that  at  a 
time  when  the  need  of  sympathy  was  sorest,  he  said, 
"Tarry  ye  here  while  I  go  and  pray  yonder." 

Few  persons  have  genius  and  soul  enough  to  experi- 
ence the  highest  religious  emotions  at  first  hand.  The 
most  can  but  poorly  simulate  and  echo  them,  or  copy 
their  forms  and  attitudes  at  a  distance.  Thus  the  gigantic 
personalities,  in  whose  tremendous  powers  and  passions 
the  chief  religious  experiences  and  rites  now  current  first 
originated,  come  to  be  reproduced  in  dwarfed  proportions 
and  faded  hues,  as  though  the  motions  of  a  figure  whose 
colossal  bulk  filled  the  space  between  earth  and  heaven 
were  seen  reflected  in  diminishing  mirrors  as  the  postur- 
ings  of  a  puppet.  To  mirror  livingly  and  originally  the 
transcendent  realities  and  relations  from  whose  corre- 
spondences in  consciousness  the  primal  religious  emo- 
tions are  born,  requires  a  depth  and  translucency  of 
sensibility  not  possessed  by  one  man  out  of  a  million. 
The  mighty  objects  and  truths  which  create  religion  by 
surpassing  and  baffling  our  powers,  which  engender  in 
our  ignorance  and  weakness  the  dread  sense  of  depend- 
ence, wonder,  and  aspiration,  refuse  to  reflect  them- 
selves in  the  shallow  and  turbid  pools  which  poorer  souls 
furnish.  Religion,  therefore,  is  essentially  lonely  and  not 
social.  The  common  notion  to  the  contrary  is  a  vulgar 
fallacy ;  a  fallacy,  however,  almost  unavoidable  from  the 
intimate  association  of  sociality  with  religious  phenom- 
ena. The  true  and  pure  religious  emotions  are  essen- 
tially solitary,  and  love  only  loneliness ;  but  the  awe, 
mystery,  helplessness,  connected  with  them  terrify  us  and 
force  us  to  seek  fellowship  in  our  experience  of  them,  as 
a  relief  and  reassurance.  It  will  always  be  found  that 
for  the  exercise  of  their  ultimate  religious  feelings  the 


52  THE   SOLITUDES    OF   MAN. 

highest,  greatest,  deepest  souls  irresistibly  seek  solitude, 
unspeakably  enjoy  it,  and  shrink  from  society  at  such 
times  with  insuperable  repugnance.  But  to  the  multi- 
tude the  direct  and  solitary  contemplation  of  their  rela- 
tions with  the  unknown  and  the  infinite  is  too  awful ;  it 
must  be  shared,  diluted,  relieved  by  organic  fellowships 
and  poetic  associations. 

There  are  topics  appropriate  for  speech,  which  nat- 
urally find  utterance  in  address  or  conversation  ;  there 
are  other  topics  meet  but  for  private  contemplation  and 
ordering,  which  find  fit  expression  only  in  soliloquy. 
This  subject  has  been  treated  with  admirable  precision 
and  grace  in  two  discourses  on  "  The  Sphere  of  Silence," 
by  an  English  divine.  They  are  to  be  found  in  that  series 
of  wonderful  discourses  by  James  Martineau,  entitled 
"  Endeavours  After  the  Christian  Life."  *  The  naked 
verities  of  religion  dwell  in  the  last  penetralia  of  our 
being  where  no  mortal  communion  can  reach.  The 
knowledge  and  love  of  them  must  ever  be  a  recluse  ex- 
perience, because  their  grandeur  is  so  great  as  to  monop- 
olize the  attention  it  secures,  and  because  their  modesty 
is  such  that  they  die  away  at  the  first  proposal  of  exhi- 
bition or  flattery.  They  will  bestow  their  fellowship  and 
reveal  their  forms  in  the  dark  mirror  of  the  mental  holy 
of  holies,  only  when  every  wind  of  the  world  is  whist, 
and  a  silence  as  of  the  primordial  solitude  reigns  through- 
out the  spaces  of  the  soul.  For  experiences  celestially 
fine  and  sensitive  as  these,  public  comparison,  giddy 
talk,  any  sort  of  notoriety,  is  desecration.  To  strew 
pearls  before  the  unclean  who  will  turn  and  rend  you  for 
it,  is  an  outrage  on  all  that  is  fit ;  those  of  swinish  char- 
acter, having  no  taste  for  adorning  themselves,  but  only  a 
greed  for  coarse  food,  must  be  expected  to  turn  angrily 
on  the  inconsiderate  man  who  disappoints  with  indigest- 
ible jewelry  their  appetite  for  corn.  A  drunkard  dis- 
paraging or  eulogizing  temperance,  —  a  harlot  descanting 

*  Each  one  of  these  most  beautiful  and  most  valuable  discouises 
is  a  key  to  some  important  compartment  of  human  experience.  He 
who  really  masters  them  carries  thenceforth  a  precious  bunch  of  the 
keys  of  life. 


THE   SOLITUDE   OF    LOVE.  53 

on  the  nature  of  virtue,  —  or  an  epicure  discussing  the 
worth  of  denial  and  heroism,  —  is  an  odious  spectacle. 
The  highest  instincts  of  the  soul  demand  moral  con- 
gruity.  Who  could  endure  to  pour  the  weird  strains  of 
Mendelssohn's  Dream  amidst  the  rattling  of  the  square 
and  the  mart  ?  Who  would  not  rather  hide  the  pictures 
of  Perugino  forever  than  display  them  on  the  walls  of  a 
slaughter-house  ?  There  are  pure  and  holy  women  who 
never  expose  their  charms  or  share  their  delights  with 
the  world,  as  there  are  lakes  that,  on  the  untrodden  tops 
of  mountains,  like  eyes  of  the  earth,  look  only  up  to 
heaven.  Every  virgin  solitude  is  perfumed  with  the 
Divine  presence,  and  balsamic  for  mental  bruises.  Di- 
vinely drawn,  the  soul  flees  thither  to  be  the  guest  of 
God,  and  Silence  is  the  sentinel  of  their  interview.  A 
retired  and  self-guarded  life  of  devotion  to  nature  is  like 
a  priestly  life  of  temple-worship ;  as  a  German  woman 
of  genius  has  said,  "  When  the  boy  Ion  steps  before  the 
portals,  and  signs  to  the  flying  storks  not  to  defile  the 
roof,  when  he  sprinkles  the  threshold  with  sparkling  water, 
and  cleans  and  decorates  the  halls,  I  feel  in  this  solitary 
occupation  a  lofty  mission  which  I  must  reverence.  Ah, 
I  too  would  be  a  youth,  to  fetch  water  in  the  fresh  morn- 
ing, while  all  yet  slumber,  to  polish  the  marble  pillars 
and  bathe  the  statues,  to  cleanse  everything  from  dust 
until  it  glistens  in  the  gloaming;  and  then,  when  the 
work  is  done,  to  rest  my  hot  brow  on  the  cool  marble, 
rest  the  bosom  that  palpitates  with  emotion  at  the  beauty 
which  breaks  into  the  temple  with  the  dawn." 

There  is  a  suitableness  of  person,  of  scene  and  season, 
required  for  the  unveiling  of  the  secrets,  and  the  con- 
templation of  the  treasures,  of  affection.  Refined  and 
thoughtful  must  be  the  person,  not  harsh  and  reckless ; 
the  scene  and  season,  not  obtrusive  and  noisy,  but  re- 
tired and  still.  Whatever  reeks  and  roars  with  the  rush- 
ing world,  shocks  and  defiles.  Pure  and  pensive  solitude 
is  the  setting  that  woos  the  living  pictures.  Nor  is  there 
any  one  wholly  destitute  of  this  lonely  companionship 
of  love,  this  saddening  wealth  of  joy.  The  veriest  wretch 
in  the  world  has  some  dear  memory,  some  beautiful  long- 


54  THE   SOLITUDES    OF   MAN. 

ing,  some  guarded  ideal,  so  fondly  prized  that  he  loves 
to  set  apart  secret  moments  for  pilgrimages  to  its  inner 
sanctuary,  there  to  worship,  perhaps  to  weep,  where  no 
eye  can  see  and  no  ear  can  hear.  So  even  the  most  su 
perficial  votary  of  fashion,  the  most  inconsiderate  retailer 
of  petty  scandals,  has  her  times  of  uncompanionable  re- 
flection, unfathomable  emotion  and  desire.  Occasionally 
this  is  found  to  be  true  in  cases  where  it  would  have  been 
least  suspected,  so  carefully  had  it  been  concealed. 
Reckless  critics  often  make  the  crudest  misjudgments 
here.  Not  unfrequently  those  thirsting  most  for  love 
shrink  most  from  notice.  Obscurity  is  their  shield. 

What  can  be  so  melancholy  as  to  have  sacred  experi- 
ences, which  ache  for  expression  and  sympathy,  and  not 
dare  to  expose  them  for  fear  of  repulse  or  ridicule?  It 
is  more  melancholy  not  to  have  them.  The  glorious,  sad 
solitude  of  one  devoted  to  the  highest  ends,  who  can  find 
no  comrades,  who  roams  the  streets  at  night,  weeping, 
longing  for  some  one  to  walk  and  talk  with  him,  to  aspire 
and  work  with  him,  —  is  more  to  be  admired  than  to  be 
pitied.  The  weeping  is  indeed  a  weakness,  but  it  ex- 
presses a  strength.  To  call  such  an  one  an  egotist  or  a 
sentimental  fool,  to  laugh  or  sneer  at  his  pain,  is  a  wicked 
heartlessness,  however  often  it  is  done.  The  wealth  of  a 
soul  is  measured  by  how  much  it  can  feel ;  its  poverty,  by 
how  little.  God  hands  gifts  to  some,  whispers  them  to 
others.  In  the  former  the  divine  charm  is  followed  by 
immediate  popular  recognition  :  in  the  latter  it  is  usually 
hidden  for  a  long  time  from  all  except  the  deep-souled 
and  deep-seeing  few.  It  is  not  improbable  that  the  truest 
saints  have  never  been  heard  of:  — 

Too  divinely  great 
For  Fame  to  sully  them  with  state, 

they  have  modestly  offered  themselves  up  to   the    UNI- 
VERSAL in  seclusion  and  silence. 

There  is  an  hour,  the  transition  between  day  and  night, 
celebrated  by  the  poets,  with  Dante  at  their  head,  which 
fine  souls  in  all  ages  have  felt  as  the  votive  season  of 
sentiment,  —  pensive  twilight,  the  dim-tinted  habitation 


THE    SOLITUDE   OF   OCCUPATION.  55 

of  solitude  and  sacredness,  hailed  with  mountain-horns 
and  hymns,  bells  and  prayers,  while  Nature  herself,  half 
steeped  in  roseate  hues,  half  mantled  in  shadow,  seems 
to  be  tenderly  musing. 

Soft  hour  which  wakes  the  wish  and  melts  the  heart 
Of  those  who  sail  the  seas,  on  the  first  day 
When  they  from  their  sweet  friends  are  torn  apart; 
Or  fills  with  love  the  pilgrim  on  his  way, 
As  the  far  bell  of  vesper  makes  him  start, 
Seeming  to  weep  the  dying  day's  decay. 

It  is  the  favorite  hour  of  all  poetic  lovers  who  have  ever 
consecrated  it  to  their  beloved,  love  they  what  they  may; 
when  they  retreat  by  themselves  from  "  the  thick  solitudes 
called  social,"  to  indulge  and  nourish  their  master-senti- 
ment ;  when  sensitive  genius  keeps  tryst  with  its  idolized 
ideal,  the  betrothed  keep  tryst  together,  and  saints  keep 
tryst  with  the  spirit  of  devotion  and  their  God. 


The  Solitude  of  Occtipatlon. 

PURSUING  our  subject  a  step  further,  we  come  to  a  sep- 
arated experience,  resulting  neither  from  the  injured  sensi- 
bility of  grief,  nor  from  the  enshrined  devoted  ness  of 
love,  but  from  lack  of  room  for  forms  of  extra  fellowship. 
It  is  the  solitude  of  an  absorbing  occupation.  Whatever 
fills  the  capacity  of  the  soul,  of  course,  for  the  time,  ex- 
cludes everything  else  ;  and  there  thus  results  an  apparent 
singleness  and  separation.  Augustine,  struggling  in  the 
crisis  of  his  conversion,  in  the  chamber  of  his  friend 
Alypius,  says,  —  "I  was  alone  even  in  his  presence.' 
This  principle  is  the  key  to  one  of  the  marked  varieties 
of  the  isolation  in  human  life.  A  man  with  a  great  mis- 
sion, an  intense  passion  for  some  definite  object,  is  there- 
by set  apart  from  the  common  crowd  of  associates  whose 
free  impulses  are  ready  to  respond  to  every  random  ap- 
peal. He  has  no  loose  energies  to  spare  in  reaction  on 
stray  chances  or  incoherent  claims  :  his  whole  soul  is 
g'.ven  to  the  one  aim  and  its  accompaniments.  Some- 
times an  illusion,  fastening  in  the  mind,  appropriates  the 


56  THE   SOLITUDES   OF   MAN. 

thoughts  and  passions  as  its  food,  and  makes  the  man  its 
servant  Others  laugh  at  his  absurdity,  or  turn  carelessly 
from  him  as  an  oddity.  Elated  with  his  error,  fondling 
his  idol,  he  heeds  not  their  scorn  or  their  neglect.  Lost 
in  his  idiosyncratic  joy  or  anxiety,  hugging  his  peculiar 
purpose  to  his  breast,  he  drifts  through  the  frigid  wilder- 
ness of  society,  as  essentially  alone  as  a  sailor  lashed  to 
a  spar  on  the  ocean. 

Dante  was  made  lean  for  many  years  by  the  exactions 
of  his  supreme  poem.  Devouring  his  time,  thought,  feel- 
ing, soul,  in  his  wanderings  and  poverty,  it  made  him 
passing  solitary  among  men,  and  kept  him  stern,  sad,  and 
serene  on  a  wondrous  fund  of  tenderness  and  vehemence. 
Ceaselessly  quarrying  at  the  rock  of  eternal  flame  and 
fame,  he  conquered  daily  peace.  If  not  thus  absorbed 
how  his  mighty  heart  must  have  gnawed  itself,  and  the 
insect  swarm  of  care,  hate,  and  sorrow  have  stung  him 
mad! 

Who  could  be  more  distinctively  by  himself  than  Co- 
lumbus, made  a  lonely  visionary  by  a  sublime  dream 
which  he  had  determined  to  embody  in  a  visible  demon- 
stration of  fact  before  the  world.  Equally  solitary  in  his 
soul  and  in  his  design,  whether  pacing  the  strand,  buried 
in  thought,  or  reasoning  with  the  monks  of  Salamanca, 
his  scheme  absorbed  him,  his  originality  set  him  on  a 
pedestal  above  the  heads  of  living  men,  among  the  illus- 
trious pioneers  of  history,  of  whom  he  claimed  lineage, 
with  whom  he  felt  his  place  and  sympathy  to  be. 

Every  first-rate  mechanician  or  inventor  who  has  cre- 
ated astonishing  machines,  has  been  remarkable  for  his 
absolute  abstraction  from  outward  things,  and  his  intense 
interior  absorotion  during  the  incubation  of  his  projects. 
All  discords  oz  schemers  of  the  highest  order,  all  in- 
tense idealists  and  workers,  are  in  this  manner  taken 
possession  of  by  their  destined  vocation.  And  thence- 
forth they  know  nothing  else.  Conversing  with  theii 
thoughts,  toiling  at  their  plans,  devising  methods,  or  im 
agining  the  results  of  success,  they  walk  up  and  down, 
deaf  to  every  foreign  solicitation  and  to  every  impedi 
ment.  Come  what  will  their  task  engrosses  them,  their 


THE   SOLITUDE   OF   OCCUPATION.  57 

fate  cries  out,  and  all  else  must  give  way.  Such  men  are 
essentially  alone  ;  though  it  is  an  unresting,  contentful 
isolation,  unlike  the  vacant,  asking  isolation  of  unab- 
sorbed  men.  Its  proper  type  is  the  loneliness  of  a  water- 
fall in  the  bosom  of  unreclaimed  nature ;  or  the  loneli- 
ness of  a  beehive  in  a  hollow  oak  in  the  heart  of  the 
untrodden  forest. 

We  must  not  overlook,  however,  the  wide  difference 
between  a  solitude  felt  as  such  in  pain  and  pining,  which 
implies  unappropriated  powers,  and  is  a  condition  of 
misery,  and  the  solitude  which  is  unconscious,  wherein 
the  soul  is  self-sufficing,  its  occupation  leaving  nothing 
unsupplied  for  the  time,  no  wish  for  external  sympathy  or 
help.  The  latter  is  one  of  the  happiest  forms  of  life,  in 
spite  of  its  somewhat  withdrawn  and  melancholy  aspect. 
Apart  from  social  interchanges,  it  may  appear  dreary  and 
monotonous ;  but  it  is  not  so.  Mendelssohn  was  re- 
peatedly known  to  wander  through  crowds,  with  abstract- 
ed face,  soliloquizing  strains  of  music  to  himself,  lost,  in 
this  improvisation,  to  all  about  him.  On  writing  the  last 
sentence  of  his  "  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Em- 
pire," Gibbon  looked  up  at  Mont  Blanc,  and  drew  a  deep 
sigh.  "  The  sudden  departure  of  his  cherished  and  ac- 
customed toil,  left  him,  as  the  death  of  a  dear  friend 
would,  sad  and  solitary." 

In  fact,  for  solid  happiness  and  peace,  there  are  none 
more  favored  than  those  blessed  with  a  master-passion 
and  a  monopolizing  work.  In  the  congenial  employment 
thus  secured,  the  earnestness  of  their  faculties  is  called 
out  and  dedicated.  They  thus  find  for  themselves  and 
in  themselves  an  independent  interest,  dignity,  and  con- 
tent, together  with  exemption  from  most  of  the  vexatious 
temptations  by  which  those  are  beset  whose  enjoyment 
rests  on  precarious  contingencies  beyond  their  own 
power.  An  enthusiastic  ornithologist,  like  Audubon  or 
Wilson,  roaming  through  trackless  forests  and  prairies 
beyond  the  outermost  haunts  of  civilization,  busy  now 
with  rifle  and  knife,  now  with  brush  and  palette,  lover  of 
nature,  lover  of  beauty,  lover  of  solitude,  lover  of  his 
chosen  pursuits,  —  what  matchless  health  and  cheer  and 
3* 


58  THE   SOLITUDES   OF   MAN. 

delight  and  peace  are  his !  Palissy  the  potter,  clad  in 
rags,  starving,  burning  his  last  chair  as  fuel  for  his  experi- 
ments,—  his  haggard  wife  and  children  almost  fancying 
him  insane,  —  was  by  no  means  the  unhappiest  of  men. 
Inspired  by  a  splendid  hope,  already  clutching  the  prize, 
he  wist  not  of  hunger  or  of  sneers ;  thrills  of  rare  bliss 
visited  his  breast,  and  bankers  and  cardinals  might  well 
have  envied  him.  When  we  think  of  the  astronomer  in 
his  secluded  tower,  in  the  gloom,  hour  by  hour  turning 
his  glass  on  the  unbreathing  heaven,  peering  into  the 
nebulous  oceans,  or  following  the  solemn  wanderers;  — 
when  we  notice  the  lamp  of  some  poor  student,  burning 
in  his  window,  his  shadow  falling  on  the  tattered  curtain 
where  he  sits  with  book  and  pen,  night  after  night,  "  out- 
watching  the  Bear  and  Thrice-great  Hermes,"  —  we  may 
fancy  that  he  leads  a  tedious  and  depressing  life.  Ah, 
no.  The  august  fellowship  of  eternal  laws,  the  thought 
of  God,  the  spirits  of  the  great  dead,  kindling  ideas  and 
hopes,  the  lineaments  of  supersensual  beauty,  glorious 
plans  of  human  improvement,  —  dispel  his  weariness, 
cheer  every  drooping  faculty,  illumine  the  bleak  cham- 
ber, and  make  it  populous  with  presences  of  grandeui 
and  joy.  The  solitude  is  unreal,  for  he  is  absorbingly 
busy.  He  is  alone,  but  not  lonely. 

When  with  a  great  company  one  listens  to  fascinat- 
ing music,  gradually  the  spell  begins  to  work  ;  little  by 
little  the  soft  wild  melody  penetrates  the  affections, — 
the  subtle  harmony  steals  into  the  inmost  cells  of  the 
brain,  winds  in  honeyed  coils  around  every  thought,  until 
consciousness  is  saturated  with  the  charm.  We  forget 
all.  Distraction  ceases,  variety  is  gone.  Spectators, 
chandeliers,  theatre,  disappear.  The  world  recedes  and 
vanishes.  The  soul  is  ravished  away,  captive  to  a  strain, 
lost  in  bewilderment  of  bliss,  its  entire  being  concentra- 
ted in  a  listening  act ;  and  we  are  able  to  believe  the  old 
legend  of  the  saint  who,  caught  up  into  paradise  by  over- 
hearing the  song  of  the  Blest,  on  awakening  from  his 
entrancement  found  that  a  thousand  years  had  passed 
while  he  was  hearkening.  Such  is  the  solitude  of  ab- 
sorption, when  it  touches  its  climax.  He  is  wise  who 


THE   SOLITUDE   OF   SELFISHNESS.  59 

endeavors  to  know  something  of  its  elevation  and  bless- 
edness by  giving  his  soul  to  those  supernal  realities 
which  are  worthy  to  take  his  absolute  allegiance,  and 
swallow  him  up.  Though  such  an  one  lives  in  solitude, 
the  solitude  itself  is  inexpressibly  sociable. 


The  Solitude  of  Selfishness. 

TURNING  to  still  another  province  of  the  subject,  we 
Qnd  a  less  congenial  topic  awaiting  us.  There  is  a  re- 
pulsive species  of  loneliness  very  different  in  its  origin 
and  nature  from  the  forms  thus  far  portrayed.  It  may 
be  designated  the  solitude  of  meanness  or  guilt.  Of  all 
the  unfelluwshipping  styles  of  life  this  is  the  bleakest 
and  the  mobt  unamiable.  In  fact,  the  other  moods  of 
segregate  experience,  however  sad  or  painful  they  may 
be,  are  not  ignoble  nor  pernicious.  But  the  persons  who 
here  come  under  notice,  with  their  ominous  habits  of 
aloofness,  are  marked  by  gloomy  or  narrow  and  des- 
picable qualities  which  cause  them  to  be  disliked  and 
shunned.  To  enjoy  company  we  must  be  able  to  trust 
each  other,  frankly  unbosom  ourselves,  think  similar 
thoughts,  feel  accordant  emotions,  blend  hearts  in  unre- 
served surrender  to  common  influences.  The  action  and 
reaction  of  souls  in  the  same  manner  and  on  the  same 
objects,  is  the  fruition  of  friendship,  —  the  experience 
of  harmonized  states  of  consciousness  sympathetically 
awakened  and  sympathetically  changing.  But  this  is 
comparatively  the  prerogative  of  the  virtuous,  the  tender, 
the  disinterested.  In  proportion  as  any  one  is  morose 
and  hateful  his  cold  or  jealous  vileness  cuts  him  off  from 
the  happiness  of  genuine  fellowship.  Wherever  he  may 
be  he  is  alone.  To  be  destitute  of  sympathy  is  the  very 
solitude  of  solitude,  no  matter  what  the  circumstances. — 
whether  from  the  window  of  a  diligence  you  look  with 
aching  heart  on  a  village  merry-making,  or  pause,  risen 
above  the  clouds,  a  solitary  wanderer,  amid  the  glacial 
sea,  gazing  in  horror  on  iis  dumb  desolation.  And  if 
absence  of  sympathy  be  the  essence  of  loneliness,  who 


60  THE   SOLITUDES   OF   MAN. 

so  lonely  as  the  cold  earthlings  who  form  the  various 
embodiments  of  selfishness,  who  take  no  interest  in  oth- 
ers except  to  make  use  of  them,  giving  no  impulsive  love, 
asking  none.  The  heartless,  it  is  certain,  cannot  perform 
the  functions  nor  enjoy  the  satisfactions  of  heart.  They 
may  not  know  the  difference  themselves,  their  very  im- 
poverishment securing  them  immunity  from  the  pangs  of 
baffled  affection,  so  that  they  do  not  suffer  from  conscious 
and  painful  isolation.  Only  the  loving  pine  for  love. 
The  most  unsympathetic,  obviously,  will  care  least  for 
society.  But  the  repulsive  solitude  in  which  the  inca- 
pacity of  their  mutilated  natures  imprisons  them,  pre- 
serves one  of  its  aspects  of  penalty  in  undiminished 
reality.  If  they  are  not  aware  of  the  negative,  •  to  lan- 
guish under  its  deprivations,  neither  can  they  possess  the 
positive,  to  thrill  with  its  bestowments.  Such  an  one 
dwells  unconsciously  chained  in  a  movable  prison  which 
he  carries  around  him  wherever  he  goes,  which  hopelessly 
shuts  the  sweetest  boons  of  existence  from  access  to  his 
soul ;  and  though  that  prison  is  invisible  to  him,  every 
other  eye  discerns  it.  Thus  the  miser,  whose  sordid  love 
of  money  receives  all  other  feelings  into  its  sea-like  pas- 
sion, who  withdraws  every  fibre  of  his  soul  from  friend 
and  foe,  from  truth  and  beauty,  to  cling  exclusively  around 
his  yellow  heaps,  isolated  within  his  squalid  show  of  rags 
and  penury,  when  he  retires  to  gloat  secretly  over  his 
hoards,  does  not  himself  feel  lonely ;  but  to  those  who 
regard  him  he  seems  profoundly  so.  They  see  him,  the 
abject  outcast,  as  an  unclean  waif  tossed  into  the  sewer 
of  society  from  the  gutter  of  civilization.  They  give  him 
a  glance  of  contemptuous  pity  in  passing,  somewhat  as 
they  would  fling  a  bone  to  a  starving  dog.  Is  not  such 
a  life  a  horrible  loneliness  ?  Outwardly  viewed,  it  is  a 
fearful  solitude ;  although  inwardly  it  may  swarm  with 
an  obscene  activity  of  greed  and  complacency. 

There  is,  then,  an  experience  carried  on  within  itself, 
quite  aloof  from  the  joyous  companionship  of  life,  not 
for  lack  of  time  and  space  for  social  interchange,  but 
from  want  of  the  personal  material  and  conditions.  This 
is  the  solitude  of  a  heartless  or  wicked  breast.  A  man 


THE   SOLITUDE   OF   SELFISHNESS.  6 1 

locked  up  in  a  shrivelled  and  frigid  self-hood,  with  no 
living  currents  of  faith  and  love  between  him  and  his 
fellow-creatures,  is  as  much  alone  amidst  a  Parisian  holi- 
day, surrounded  by  a  bedecked  and  huzzaing  world  of 
humanity,  as  the  traveller  who  loses  his  way,  benighted 
in  the  centre  of  a  Polish  forest,  and,  in  the  drifted  snow, 
leans  against  a  tree,  starving  and  freezing,  while  the  dis- 
tant yell  of  wolves  is  borne  to  his  ears. 

A  Greek  philosopher,  referring  to  two  opposite  kinds 
of  loneliness,  experienced  from  antithetical  causes,  said 
that  he  who  loved  solitude  must  be  either  a  god  or  a 
beast.  He  only  stated  the  truth  a  little  extravagantly. 
Man  is  made  for  society  and  brotherhood.  He  who  is 
content  to  dwell  alone,  then,  without  society  or  brother- 
hood, is  on  a  plane  of  endowment  and  desire  either  supe- 
rior or  inferior  to  that  of  common  humanity,  approximates 
the  level  either  of  a  divinity  or  of  a  brute.  In  other 
words,  solitude  may  be  approached  by  ascent  or  by  de- 
scent. There  is  the  separation  of  the  throne,  and  there 
is  the  separation  of  the  sty.  Man  may  soar  into  experi- 
ences too  exalted  and  complex  for  easy  communication 
with  comrades  of  the  earth,  too  sublime  and  holy  to  be 
vulgarized  in  plebeian  speech,  —  the  solitude  of  a  god. 
Man  may  sink  into  experiences  too  poor  and  base  to  bear 
articulation,  too  secret  and  selfish  to  be  capable  of  sym- 
pathy,—  the  solitude  of  a  beast.  Thus  one  maybe  alone 
because  he  is  above,  or  because  he  is  beneath,  the  con- 
ditions of  satisfactory  companionship  with  his  neighbors. 
While  these  two  are  alike  in  being  isolated,  the  distinc- 
tion between  them  traverses  the  entire  distance  from  the 
august  to  the  despicable.  The  sentiment  of  the  lonely 
which  invests  the  self-seeker  in  his  plot  differs  from  that 
which  surrounds  the  poet  in  his  dream  as  the  solitude  of 
the  buzzard,  picking  his  prey  in  the  glen,  differs  from  the 
solitude  of  the  sun,  burning  in  the  zenith. 

The  legitimate  effect  of  sin,  of  everything  that  serves 
private  interest  to  the  injury  of  the  universal  interest,  is 
to  sunder  and  segregate.  Evil  bristles  with  negative 
polarity,  and  would  disintegrate  the  society  in  which  it 
prevails.  On  the  other  hand,  the  power  of  virtue  leads 


62  THE   SOLITUDES   OF    MAN. 

its  subjects  to  commune,  clasp,  coalesce.  The  fox,  tin 
hawk,  the  leopard,  from  their  selfish  dispositions,  are 
solitary ;  they  shun  a  company  that  they  may  the  better 
pounce  on  their  prey,  and  glut  their  appetite.  But  the 
bees  live  in  swarms,  the  friendly  swallows  fly  in  flocks 
and  build  their  nests  in  contiguity.  Brave  impulses  and 
magnanimous  sentiments,  every  moral  or  religious  affec- 
tion, all  qualities  loyally  allied  to  principles  that  subor- 
dinate individual  whims  to  the  general  good,  are  attrac- 
tive, have  a  public  regard,  yearn  spontaneously  outward 
to  love  and  be  loved,  to  bless  and  be  blessed.  They 
draw  men  into  groups,  set  the  nerves  of  relationship  vi- 
brating, fill  the  channels  of  mutual  life  with  invitation 
and  energy.  This  is  the  instinctive  tendency  of  all  rich 
and  gentle  hearts,  unless,  as  sometimes  unhappily  occurs, 
tragic  rebuffs,  failures  and  sufferings  teach  them  to  ?ct 
otherwise  in  self-defence.  But  ignoble  passions,  cruel 
indulgence,  all  the  suspicious  and  hateful  characteristics 
of  selfishness,  which  would  gratify  the  lawless  craving  of 
the  individual  at  the  expense  of  the  solemn  and  perma- 
nent weal  of  the  whole,  naturally  creep  into  secrecy, 
and,  repulsively  electrized  with  fear  and  malignity,  walk 
apart  there. 

An  intense  feeling  of  solitude  is  produced  in  a  man  of 
dark  designs  when  his  confederates  turn  against  him  and 
desert  him.  In  the  revulsion  from  busy  associates  and 
elated  hopes  to  isolation,  overthrow  and  despair,  he  must 
feel  a  fearful  loneliness.  Wallenstein,  betrayed  by  Gallas, 
Piccolomini,  Altringer,  and  nearly  all  the  rest  in  whom 
he  had  confided,  standing  solitary,  overwhelmed,  yet  up- 
right, amidst  the  ruins  of  his  guilty  projects,  furnishes  an 
impressive  instance.  The  superstitious  dreams  with  which 
he  had  linked  his  destiny  to  the  stars,  nursing  his  vast  and 
sombre  ambition  with  astrological  prognostics,  only  served 
then  to  make  his  solitude  more  gigantic. 

The  fittest  emblem  of  the  solitude  of  a  completely 
selfish  man  moving  about  in  society,  is  the  loneliness  of 
an  iceberg  drifting  amidst  the  crowds  of  waves,  now 
feebly  glimmering  with  moonbeams,  now  shattering  the 
tempest  on  its  breast,  finally,  honeycombed  with  rotten- 


THE   SOLITUDE   OF    SELFISHNESS.  63 

ness,  toppling  over  and  swallowed  in  the  maw  of  the 
maelstrom  its  own  plunging  makes.  There  are  several 
classes  of  persons  who,  as  exiled  from  the  open  and 
genial  fellowship  of  life,  are  alone,  even  when,  from  their 
egotistic  absorption  or  their  hardened  indifference,  they 
are  not  lonesome.  The  cynic,  who  admires  and  enjoys 
nothing,  despises  and  censures  everything,  eager,  morose, 
his  milk .  of  human  kindness  turned  sour ;  the  misan- 
thrope, whose  blood  has  been  turned  into  gall  by  decep- 
tion or  disease,  a  malevolent  villain,  whose  first  impulse 
is  to  hate  and  avoid  every  one  he  meets,  or  to  blast 
them  with  his  scorn  ;  the  proud,  haughtily  holding  their 
heads  aloft,  snuffing  the  incense  of  their  own  conceit, 
unable  to  stoop  to  the  sweet  offices  of  meek  humanity, 
fancying  the  earth  too  base  for  their  feet,  and  •  other  men 
only  good  enough  to  be  their  servants ;  the  mean,  all 
whose  experiences  sneak  in  dark  by-ways,  too  cowardly 
to  face  the  sun  and  the  loving  eyes  of  men,  —  unable  to 
rise  to  the  level  of  a  generous  sentiment,  a  noble  enthu- 
siasm, a  momentary  self-forgetfulness  ;  —  such  as  these, 
destitute  of  the  essential  conditions  of  friendship,  must 
be  deprived  of  all  the  best  fruitions  of  human  society. 
The  world  and  life  must  be  to  them  comparatively  what 
they  were  to  the  leper  of  the  Middle  Age.  This  abomi- 
nated outcast,  clad  in  a  coarse  gray  gown  reaching  from 
head  to  foot,  with  the  hood  drawn  over  the  face,  went 
about  carrying  in  his  hand  an  enormous  rattle,  called 
Saint  Lazarus's  rattle,  whose  frightful  sound  warned  every 
human  being  to  keep  at  a  distance  ;  he  was  thus  banished 
from  his  fellow  men  by  a  cordon  of  disease  and  horror 
drawn  around  him,  which  drove  every  one  before  it  as  he 
advanced. 

The  tiger,  in  his  awful  strength  and  voracity,  when  he 
forays  in  the  trembling  haunt  of  antelopes, .is  not  more 
alone  than  the  tyrant,  wrapped  in  the  pomps  of  power  as 
in  robes  of  ice,  shaking  a  nation  with  his  murderous  nod, 
having  a  taster  for  every  dish  lest  it  be  poisoned,  wearing 
a  secret  shirt  of  mail  lest  some  assassin  reach  him.  The 
abandoned  devotee  of  debauchery,  giving  full  swing  to 
depraved  propensities,  now  rioting  in  excommunicate 


64  THE   SOLITUDES   OF   MAN. 

gratifications  with  sickening  gusto,  now  shuddering  with 
nameless  horrors  and  anguish,  lurking  in  hidden  retreats, 
like  Tiberius  at  Capri,  exists  in  a  hideous  solitude.  The 
criminal  is  drearily  alone  ;  temptation,  struggle,  guilt,  re- 
morse, despair,  are  the  loneliest  of  experiences.  Evil 
seduces  and  assails,  is  embraced  or  vanquished,  singly 
and  in  private.  Secretly  and  alone  are  we  all  led  up  into 
the  wilderness  to  be  tempted  of  the  devil. 

No  one  can  be  so  unspeakably  alone  as  the  possessor 
of  a  foul  and  dreadful  secret  which  turns  nature  into  a 
listening  confessional,  and  the  disclosure  of  which  he 
feels  would  instantly  discharge  the  thunderbolts  of  doom. 
The  prisoner  of  a  guilty  past,  aching  for  communication, 
yet  shrinking  from  it  with  terror,  dying  for  sympathy,  yet 
not  daring  to  seek  it,  dwells  in  the  most  terrible  of  all 
solitudes.  The  memory  of  his  crime,  charged  with  dire 
bodements,  fastened  inextricably  to  his  soul,  —  he  feels 
as  a  victim  bound  to  the  stake,  a  distant  girdle  of  faggots 
burning  towards  him.  Though  agonizing  for  deliverance, 
he  fears  to  accept  it :  for,  appalling  as  his  loneliness  is, 
how  can  he  bear  society,  when  he  knows  that,  at  any  in- 
stant, the  fatal  secret  sunk  in  the  depths  of  his  conscious- 
ness may  slip  the  shot  from  its  shroud  and  bolt  on  his 
horrified  gaze ! 

There  are  things,  as  we  thus  see,  too  mean  and  bad  to 
be  voluntarily  disclosed,  too  wicked  and  terrible  for  a 
trustful  communion  ;  the  fears  they  engender,  the  shocks 
they  would  impart,  and  the  dangers  they  threaten,  keep 
their  subjects  apart  and  taciturn  in  the  suspicious  and 
sinister  seclusion  of  an  inner  secrecy.  The  wickedest 
man  in  the  world  is  the  most  completely  alone,  in  the  ety- 
mological sense  of  the  word,  that  is,  all  one,  —  sundered 
fron  these  virtuous  and  blessed  junctions  with  others 
which  properly  make  each  man  a  part  of  the  whole  of 
humanity. 


1HE   SOLITUDE   OF   GENIUS.  65 


The  Solitude  of  Genius. 

THE  extreme  of  experience  just  described  is  the  lone- 
liness of  the  leprous.  On  the  other  hand  there  are  souls 
occupied  with  matters  so  exaltedly  noble  and  sensitive  as 
to  be  generally  incommunicable.  This  extreme  is  the 
loneliness  of  the  laurelled.  This  class  of  men  are  lonely 
not  because  they  do  not  dare,  or  cannot  bear,  or  do  not 
wish,  the  most  intimate  companionship.  They  are  lonely 
because  their  states  of  consciousness  are  so  swift  and  fine, 
their  height  of  soul  and  range  of  life  so  vast  and  ardu- 
ous, that  their  associates  are  unable  to  appreciate  them. 
This  brings  us  to  the  saddest  and  sublimest  part  of  our 
theme,  the  solitude  of  genius.  The  lark  rises  against 
the  rosy  ceiling  of  day,  far  beyond  the  emulation  of 
ground-birds  ;  and  genius  soars  into  heaven  in  its  wor- 
shipping joyousness  until  no  earth-bound  spirit  can  fol- 
low. The  scale  of  its  experience,  in  both  directions 
equally,  joy  and  sorrow,  surpasses  that  of  common 
persons. 

Chords  that  vibrate  sweetest  pleasuie 
Thrill  the  deepest  notes  of  woe. 

All  men  of  unusual  mass  and  height  of  character  wear 
a  sombre  hue  of  purpose  which  repels  familiarity.  "  The 
love  of  retirement,"  Johnson  impressively  remarks,  "  has 
in  all  ages  adhered  closely  to  those  minds  which  have 
been  most  enlarged  by  knowledge  or  elevated  by  wis- 
dom. They  have  found  themselves  unable  to  pursue  the 
race  of  life  without  frequent  respirations  of  intermediate 
solitude.  There  is  scarcely  any  man,  eminent  for  extent 
of  capacity  or  greatness  of  exploits,  that  has  not  left  be- 
hind him  some  memorials  of  lonely  wisdom  and  silent 
dignity." 

Every  one  conspicuous  above  his  fellows  in  endow- 
ments is  made  solitary  in  that  degree,  unless  his  gifts,  by 
ministering  to  their  gratification,  bring  him  into  social 
relations  with  them  and  win  him  their  applause.  Even 
then  the  solace  he  finds  is  usually  obtained  by  turning 


66  THE   SOLITUDES   OF   MAN. 

the  ordinary  side  of  his  nature  into  view  and  action,  veil 
ing  or  suspending  the  peculiar  endowment  in  which  he  so 
far  surpasses  others  as  to  be  an  insulated  unique.  Medi- 
ocrity need  not  search  for  sympathizers  ;  they  swarm. 
Originality  may  seek  widely  and  long,  but  in  vain,  for 
the  equal  love  it  desires.  Originality  is  understood  slow- 
ly and  with  difficulty,  easily  gains  notice,  less  easily  com- 
mands disciples,  but  most  easily  provokes  dislike  and 
creates  foes,  then  itself  revolts  into  disguise  and  seclu- 
sion, and  only  with  the  utmost  labor  and  infrequency 
succeeds  in  discovering  or  making  an  adequate  friend- 
ship. Extraordinary  minds  are  painfully  alone  in  the 
world  because  their  actions  cannot  elicit  harmonized  re- 
actions from  the  ordinary  minds  by  which  they  are  sur- 
rounded. And  the  latter  are  trained  into  satisfying  con- 
formity with  the  former  only  in  such  rare  instances  and 
with  such  pains,  because  that  educational  process  requires 
a  tenacity,  a  patient  affectionateness,  which  the  ordinary 
mind  is  not  supplied  with.  The  soul  touched  by  God  is 
separate.  Prophets  are  lonely ;  Elijah,  fed  by  ravens 
beside  his  secret  cave  and  stream,  - —  fed  with  meat  in 
whose  strength  he  travelled  forty  days  unto  Mount  Ho- 
reb,  we  cannot  think  of  as  a  social  man.  Paul,  after  his 
miraculous  conversion  and  commission,  says,  "  I  con- 
ferred not  with  flesh  and  blood " ;  he  withdrew  into 
Arabia  for  a  long  season  of  meditation  and  spiritual 
training.  It  is  reported  of  Jesus  himself,  that  he  oft 
"  withdrew  into  the  wilderness  and  prayed."  What  a 
lonely  and  strengthening  time  of  it  Luther  had  in  Wart- 
burg  castle  on  the  edge  of  the  dark  Thuringian  forest ; 
and  Loyola  in  the  sepulchral  cavern  of  Manresa,  on  the 
banks  of  the  limpid  Cardinero  !  Great  teachers  too,  as 
well  as  prophets,  are  lonely  ;  there  are  so  few  prepared 
to  understand  them  and  give  them  welcoming  response. 
"  The  light  shineth  in  darkness,  and  the  darkness  com- 
prehendeth  it  not." 

Genius  is  alone  both  as  to  the  world  it  constitutes  and 
•AS  to  the  world  in  which  it  moves.  Souls  of  coarse  fibre 
and  mean  store  cannot  responsively  reproduce  the  deli- 
cacy and  wealth  of  its  inner  experiences ;  neither  can 


THE   SOLITUDE   OF   GENIUS.  67 

they  see  the  supernatural  glory  of  its  outer  visions.  For 
genius  beholds  without,  the  wonders  it  first  feels  within. 
To  its  perception,  in  imaginative  grief,  the  ocean  is  a  uni- 
verse of  tears-  murmuring  human  woes.  In  its  moods  of 
abounding  love  and  serenity  every  material  object  is  an 
emblematic  voice,  a  window  o'f  spirit,  a  divinized  hiero- 
glyph. When  the  two  friends,  Beaumont  and  De  Toc- 
queville,  were  floating  together  at  evening  in  a  boat  on 
one  of  the  great  lakes  of  the  western  continent,  the  latter 
says  the  moon  stood  in  the  edge  of  the  sky  "  like  a 
transparent  door  opening  into  another  world."  Such  an 
expression  would  be  unmeaning  or  distressing  to  a  mere 
proser.  Soft,  rich,  capacious  genius,  looking  with  eyes 
of  inquiring  tenderness  into  every  soul  it  meets,  and  see- 
ing nothing  there  correspondent  with  what  is  deepest  and 
dearest  in  itself,  is  repelled  into  solitude.  Then  in  pa- 
thetic disappointment,  with  rebounding  and  ebullient  faith, 
it  laves  the  void  with  the  copious  overflow  of  its  emotions, 
until  that  void,  filled  with  immortal  spirits,  with  heaven 
and  God,  reflects  upon  the  yearning  giver  and  recipient 
wonderful  answers  of  beauty  and  love.  And  so  a  divine 
peace  is  won,  and  solitude  becomes  more  sufficing  than 
society.  When  the  young  Michael  Angelo  went  to  Rome 
and  began  to  study  and  labor  there,  he  wrote  home,  — 
"  I  have  no  friends  ;  I  need  none."  The  huge  "confusion 
of  the  life  of  the  metropolis  only  penetrated  like  a  distant 
murmur  "  the  solitude  in  which  he  dwelt  and  toiled,  with 
little  sympathy  from  other  men,  though  with  much  admi- 
ration. His  chief  happiness  was  in  absorbing  work,  and 
in  the  visions  of  that  ideal  realm  where  he  walked  as 
king. 

The  famous  platonizing  English  divine,  Henry  More, 
was  lonely  among  the  earthlings  and  partisans  of  his 
time.  His  ideality,  learning,  and  earnest  love  removed 
him  in  spirit  to  a  planetary  distance  from  his  worldly- 
minded  neighbors,  whom  he  characterized  as  "  parrot- 
'  like  prattlers  boasting  their  wonderfull  insight  to  holy 
truth,  when  as  they  have  indeed  scarce  licked  the  outside 
of  the  glasse  wherein  it  lies."  He  was  wont  to  think 
"  the  angels  looked  on  this  troubled  stream  of  the  perish- 


68  THE   SOLITUDES   OF   MAN. 

ing  generations  of  men  to  as  little  purpose  almost  as  idle 
boys  do  on  dancing  blebs  and  bubbles  in  the  water." 
Knowing  how  truly  catholic  and  genial  he  was,  we  recog- 
nize with  a  personal  regret  what  the  experience  must 
have  been  which  caused  him  to  sing,  — 

Cut  off  from  men  and  all  this  world, 
In  Lethe's  lonesome  ditch  I  'in  hurled  ; 
Sad  solitude  's  my  irksome  bliss. 

There  belongs  to  such  natures  as  that  of  poor  David 
Gray,  the  Scottish  poet,  at  least  for  a  time,  the  experience 
of  a  piteous,  half-frightened  loneliness.  Intensely  con- 
scious of  his  own  difference  from  those  around  him,  but 
with  his  feeling  of  superiority  not  sufficiently  powerful 
and  pronounced  to  give  him  peace,  he  hungers  for  love 
and  admiration  from  them  to  assure  him  that  this  differ- 
ence is  not  a  weakness  or  a  delusion,  but  is  the  stamp 
of  genius.  This  eagerness  to  be  noticed  and  praised  in 
order  that  he  may  not  fall  into  despair  and  betray  his 
mission,  is  often  repulsive  to  poor  observers,  and  wins 
him  aversion,  perhaps  hate  and  ridicule.  He  should  in 
such  a  case  not  droop  with  distrust  and  grief,  but  gird 
himself  with  noble  convictions  ;  comfort  himself  not  with 
disdain  but  with  benignity,  perceiving  that^the  truly  great 
can  be  appreciated  only  by  their  mental  kindred.  Had 
an  ignorant  shepherd,  and  a  Plato,  in  climbing  the  Cau- 
casus, come  upon  Prometheus,  what  different  estimates 
and  emotions  would  have  arisen  in  their  respective  souls 
as  they  saw  there  the  worn  form  of  the  august  sufferer 
nailed  to  the  wintry  mountain  wall !  Each  man  can  judge 
of  other  men  only  in  the  light  and  with  the  aid  of  the 
data  he  carries  in  himself. 

The  chamois  browses  by  himself  on  the  blue  cliffs  of  the 
sky  because  his  food  is  in  that  high  haunt,  and  because  he 
;s  so  shy  of  his  foes.  Is  it  not  something  the  same  with 
the  rare  specimens  of  humanity?  The  most  exalted  con- 
templations are  the  nourishment  of  their  life,  and  they  are 
wonderfully  sensitive  to  the  hostile  influences  that  threat- 
en them  on  the  low  level  of  the  crowd.  Accordingly  they 
shrink  from  the  elbows  and  sneers  of  the  vulgar,  climb 


THE   SOLITUDE   OF   GENIUS.  69 

out  of  the  stifling  vapors  of  the  valley,  feel  the  exhila- 
rating attraction  of  the  free  empyrean.  The  higher  they 
ascend  the  fewer  are  able  to  accompany  them,  and  the 
bleaker  grows  the  desolation,  until  at  last  all  are  left 
behind,  and  the  glorious  isolation  that  invests  them  is 
like  the  cold  loneliness  that  surrounds  the  sunset-head 
of  Monte  Rosa.  The  penalty  affixed  to  supremely 
equipped  souls  is  that  they  must  often  be  thus  left  alone 
on  the  cloudy  eminence  of  their  greatness,  amidst  the 
lightnings  and  the  stars  of  the  canopy,  commanding  the 
sovereign  prospects  indeed,  but  sighing  for  the  warm 
breath  of  the  vale  and  the  friendly  embraces  of  men.  A 
naturalist,  caught  in  a  terrible  tempest  on  Mount  Etna, 
at  the  height  of  ten  thousand  feet,  spent  twenty-four 
hours  there  in  a  cavern,  amidst  the  awful  uproar,  feeling 
quite  certain  that  in  all  Europe  not  another  human  being 
passed  that  night  in  the  same  stratum  of  air.  Many  a 
deep  and  bold  thinker  often  deems  himself  the  exclusive 
occupant  of  some  stratum  of  new  ideas  and  emotions. 
Though  frequently  a  mistake,  the  supposition  is  undoubt- 
edly sometimes  well  founded.  When  Amerigo  Vespucci 
saw  the  Southern  Cross  it  was  a  baseless  boast  he  made, 
declaring  that  he  now  "  looked  on  the  four  stars  never 
seen  till  then  by  any  save  the  first  human  pair."  In  the 
boundless  regions  of  speculative  thought  there  still  are 
innumerable  solitudes,  but  very  few  virgin  solitudes.  It 
is  usually  but  a  vain  conceit  that  prompts  us  to  believe 
that  we  are  standing  in  view  of  a  mental  prospect  no 
mortal  imagination  has  before  seen.  Few,  indeed,  are 
the  positions  in  the  intelligible  universe  open  to  man, 
which  have  not  been  occupied  and  commanded  by  the 
minds  of  Plato,  Dante,  Shakespeare,  Leibnitz,  Kant, 
and  Goethe.  When  Belzoni,  with  great  labor,  had  pene 
trated  the  rocky  sepulchre  of  Setei-Menephthah  to  its 
inmost  secret,  he  found  he  was  not  the  first  who  had 
made  a  violent  entrance  thither ;  for  the  sarcophagus 
was  broken  and  the  mummy  gone.  Exceedingly  rare 
are  the  discoverers  of  solitudes,  either  in  the  material  oi 
the  spiritual  world,  of  whom  it  can  be  truly  said,  — 

They  were  the  first  that  ever  burst 
Into  that  silent  sea. 


70  THE   SOLITUDES   OF    MAN. 

Those  grandeurs  of  the  material  and  of  the  intellect- 
ual universe  which  overpower  our  self-sufficiency  are  the 
favorite  subjects  of  contemplation  with  the  grandest 
souls.  And  whatever  object  of  nature  or  of  thought  is 
so  vast  as  to  impress  us  with  a  sense  of  our  own  littleness 
and  evanescence,  makes  us  feel  lonely.  What  a  desolate 
sense  of  isolation  comes  over  a  stranger  in  a  strange 
land  when  he  feels  the  poor  atom,  self,  sheerly  contrasted 
with  the  vast  cold  mass  of  all  humanity  beside !  The 
nightly  illumination  of  the  houses  and  streets  of  London 
consumes  fifty  million  cubic  feet  of  gas,  representing 
three  thousand  tons  of  coal.  Yet  this  light,  sufficing  as 
it  does  for  two  millions  of  persons,  is  in  the  awful  cone 
of  night  but  as  a  glowworm  flying  in  the  valley  of  the 
Mississippi.  The  solitude  of  the  sky  when  not  a  bird 
flies,  not  a  cloud  floats,  through  its  eternal  dome,  is  not 
deeper  or  sublimer  than  that  of  the  mind  of  a  Coperni- 
cus or  a  Malebranche.  How  can  they  come  down  to 
mix  in  the  conflict  of  jabbering  mediocrities  ? 

The  fine  deep  soul  of  Weber,  —  out  of  which  came 
Der  Freischutz,  Oberon,  and  many  another  weird  and 
tender  strain,  —  often  felt  a  dismal  loneliness  in  the 
crowd.  His  insulating  unlikeness  from  the  average  of 
men,  in  his  truest  moments,  was  dreary.  When,  after 
fourteen  careful  rehearsals,  he  had  brought  out  Beetho- 
ven's Fidelio,  at  Berlin,  and  it  was  received  with  cold 
indifference,  he  exclaimed  in  indignation,  "  They  could 
not  understand  the  greatness  of  this  music.  Vulgar  folly 
would  suit  them  far  better.  It  is  enough  to  drive  one 
mad."  Over  and  over  after  the  mention  in  his  diary  of 
the  fashionable  parties  he  attended  in  the  aristocratic 
mansions  of  Prague,  he  adds  the  despairing  exclama- 
tions :  "  Alas  !  Ah  me  !  O  God ! "  He  writes  :  —  "  Bohe- 
mia has  become  for  me  a  mere  hospital  of  all  intellect. 
There  are  so  many  miserable  souls  in  the  world  !  I  can- 
not but  feel  that  I  unconsciously  withdraw  myself  more 
and  more  from  my  fellow  men."  On  parting  with  his 
beloved  .  friends,  Alexander  Von  Dusch  and  Gottfried 
Weber,  at  twenty-four,  he  wrote  in  his  diary  :  —  "  Shall  I 
ever  again  find  in  the  world  friends  so  dear  and  men  so 


THE   SOLITUDE   OF   GENIUS.  71 

true  ? "  Sixteen  years  later,  when  near  his  death,  he 
wrote  on  the  same  page,  "  No  !  " 

Almost  every  great  man  addicted  to  contemplation, 
and  of  literary  habit,  has  left  on  record  some  expression 
of  his  loneliness.  Erasmus,  while  residing  in  the  Uni- 
versity of  Cambridge  as  a  lecturer  on  Greek  and  Theol- 
ogy, writes  to  his  friend  Ammonius,  under  date  Novem- 
ber 28th,  1515,  "Here  is  one  unbroken  solitude.  Many 
have  left  for  fear  of  the  plague ;  and  yet  when  they  are 
all  here  the  solitude  is  much  worse."  Shakespeare, 
whose  unparalleled  sensitiveness  and  vastness  of  sensi- 
bility seem  to  have  enabled  him  to  embrace  the  con- 
scious substance  of  almost  every  form  of  experience 
ever  presented  to  man,  —  who  has  so  livingly  painted 
the  imaginative  solitude  of  Prospero,  the  metaphysical 
solitude  of  Hamlet,  the  piteous  solitude  of  Timon,  the 
savage  solitude  of  Apemantus,  and  the  loathsome  soli- 
tude of  Caliban,  —  in  one  of  his  Sonnets  speaks  in  his 
own  person  of  a  time  — 

When  in  disgrace  with  fortune  and  men's  eyes 

I  all  alone  beweep  my  outcast  state, 

And  trouble  deaf  Heaven  with  my  bootless  cries. 

Lessing,  after  the  death  of  his  wife,  wrote  to  Claudius,  — 
"  I  must  begin  once  more  to  go  on  my  way  alone.  I  have 
not  a  single  friend  to  whom  I  can  confide  my  whole  be- 
ing. I  am  too  proud  to  own  that  I  am  unhappy ;  I  shut 
my  teeth,  and  let  the  bark  drift.  Enough  that  I  do  not 
turn  it  over  with  my  own  hands." 

The  separate  conditions  of  mental  loneliness  are  joined 
and  concentrated  in  the  case  of  genius.  A  personality 
exceptionally  emphasized,  sensibility  chronically  as  ex- 
quisite as  that  of  others  is  temporarily  made  by  bereav- 
ing afflictions  or  blissful  boons,  an  absorbing  activity  in 
the  line  of  its  special  vocation,  —  all  these  belong  to 
genius  ;  and  therefore  it  must  be  largely  solitary.  Genius 
is  average  humanity  raised  to  a  higher  power,  and  is  dis- 
tinguished from  its  neighbors  as  the  king  is  distinguished 
from  his  courtiers  by  the  dais  and  the  crown.  Every 
great  passion,  sublime  purpose,  singular  pursuit,  or  un- 


72  THE   SOLITUDES   OF   MAN. 

equalled  susceptibility,  naturally  tends  to  isolate  its  sub- 
ject and  make  him  pine  with  baffled  longings. 

Furthermore,  the  fact  that  genius,  by  its  realizing  imag- 
ination and  appropriating  sympathy,  naturally  shares  in 
all  the  events  and  experiences  of  which  the  signs  are 
brought  to  its  knowledge,  as  keenly  as  the  ordinary  soul 
feels  its  own  personal  concerns,  makes  it  liable  to  extreme 
distress  in  the  wrongs  and  woes  of  the  world.  Hence 
often  arises  a  strong  temptation  to  retreat  into  some  re- 
mote solitude  to  escape  the  harassing  pressure  of  this 
ideal  contact  with  the  great  miseries  of  the  public  battle 
of  life.  Cowper  expresses  the  feeling  well  :  — 

O  for  a  lodge  in  some  vast  wilderness, 

Some  boundless  contiguity  of  shade, 

Where  rumor  of  oppression  and  deceit, 

Of  unsuccessful  or  successful  war, 

Might  never  reach  me  more !     My  ear  is  pained, 

My  soul  is  sick,  with  every  day's  report 

Of  wrong  and  outrage  with  which  earth  is  filled. 

There  are,  concealed  in  the  undesecrate  shrine  of  inno- 
cence, a  thousand  matters  too  modest  and  too  holy  to 
suffer  themselves  to  be  laid  bare  to  the  gaze  of  hardened 
men.  There  are,  in  and  about  the  virgin  soul  of  genius, 
a  thousand  delicious  fragilities  of  thought  and  sentiment, 
which,  like  the  dewy  gossamer  shown  on  a  rosebush  at 
sunrise,  if  you  try  to  lift  and  convey  them,  are  torn,  dis- 
solve, and  vanish  from  your  grasp.  Such  a  soul  must 
crave  seclusion  from  the  jar  and  friction  of  life,  sweet 
opportunities  for  musing  and  aspiration.  "  Quiet  is  the 
element  of  wisdom  ;  the  calmest  man  is  the  wisest.  For 
the  mind  is  a  coral-stone,  around  which  thoughts  cluster 
silently  in  stillness,  but  are  scared  away  by  tumult." 
Some  persons  are  so  crude  and  heavy  that  it  requires 
ponderous  masses  of  power  to  disturb  the  stolid  poise  of 
their  attractions  ;  others  are  as  alive  to  imponderable  in- 
fluences as  electrometers.  Between  such  a  great  gulf  is 
fixed.  A  fine  interior  nature,  exuberant  with  affection 
and  fancy,  set  in  a  world  of  capricious  external  hurriers, 
frigid  mockers,  ever  eluding  his  embrace,  is  as  lonely  as 
an  Alpine  flower  nestled  in  the  crevice  of  a  crag  and 
blooming  there  on  the  edge  of  the  glacier. 


THE   SOLITUDE   OF   GENIUS.  73 

The  man  whose  heart  is  such  a  sensitive  plant  that 
every  cloud  which  floats  remotely  above  it  causes  its 
petals  to  close,  —  what  adequate  communion  can  he  have 
with  the  herds  of  jokers,  the  noise  of  whose  mirth  in- 
trudes on  the  silence  of  his  prayers  ?  He  feels  more  at 
home  on  the  margin  of  a  lonely  stream  than  in  the 
thoroughfares  of  the  metropolis.  The  bell  of  a  seques- 
tered convent  is  much  more  congenial  to  him  than  the 
hum  of  a  reception-room.  No  wonder  rich  and  delicate 
natures  protect  themselves  by  retreating ;  they  suffer  less 
cruelly  from  their  melancholy  desertedness  than  from 
the  lacerations  of  ungenial  society.  An  awkward,  coarse 
companion  disturbs  the  reveries  that  hang  in  live  sus- 
pense on  the  altitudes  of  their  minds,  as  rudely  as  when, 
floating  in  a  canoe  at  midnight  on  a  forest-girt  pond, 
the  idiotic  laugh  of  the  loon  suddenly  breaks  the  spell, 
dispersing  the  solemn  hush  of  wood  and  lake.  It  is 
natural  enough,  that,  after  such  an  experience,  loneliness 
should  be,  for  a  while,  preferred  to  company.  Solitude 
is  the  refuge  of  the  sensitive. 

It  is  a  necessity  for  genius  to  feel,  in  a  certain  sense,  a 
complacent  aloofness  and  superiority  to  the  herd  of  the 
world,  in  order  to  sustain  itself  at  its  own  proper  height. 
Among  the  two  hundred  thousand  men  who  rose  up  when 
Virgil  entered  the  Roman  Theatre,  there  was  but  one 
Varius  competent  to  correct  the  ^Eneid.  Knowing  the 
thoughtlessness  and  fickleness  of  the  folly-swayed  mass 
of  the  people,  if  the  great  man  did  not  cherish  a  keen 
conviction  of  his  own  greater  elevation,  insight,  and  no- 
bleness, he  would  soon  cease  to  be  a  great  man.  Thus 
Goethe  wrote  in  his  old  age,  "  I  was  first  uncomfortable  to 
men  by  my  error,  then  by  my  earnestness  :  so,  do  what  I 
would,  I  was  alone."  So  Adam  Smith  sa:d,  "  The  mob  of 
mankind  are  admirers  and  worshippers  of  wealth  and  sta- 
tion." So  Bishop  Butler  said,  "  Whole  communities  may 
be  insane  as  well  as  individuals."  So  Spinoza,  pitching 
his  tent  as  on  an  Ararat  in  the  desert  of  disdain,  from  the 
incomparable  loftiness  and  scope  of  his  intellectual  hori- 
zon, looked  down  on  the  undiscriminating  and  incompe- 
tent multitudes  of  men  with  a  quiet  and  pitying  contempt 


74  THE   SOLITUDES   OF   MAN. 

This  was  full  of  solace  and  strength  for  him.  Without  it 
he  would  have  died  of  heart-break  and  despair.  His  dis- 
tance from  the  grovelling  victims  of  ignorance,  delusion, 
and  hate,  measured  his  nearness  to  God  ;  and  he  was  sup- 
ported. There  was  no  unkindness  in  his  mood ;  it  is  re- 
moved by  a  whole  moral  world  from  everything  like  vin- 
dictive spleen.  Madame  Swetchine  was  very  free  from 
pride  and  the  spirit  of  contempt ;  yet  she  writes  from 
Paris  to  a  friend  :  "  My  God,  the  pitiable  thing  the  con- 
versation of  these  assemblies  is !  It  was  the  first  of  the 
year ;  nonsense,  silliness,  gossip,  frivolity,  were  in  all  their 
freshness.  It  is  indeed  well  to  repose  through  the  sum- 
mer, away  from  what  is  called  the  grand  world,  a  taste  for 
which  is  the  greatest  misfortune  that  can  happen  to  mind 
and  heart."  A  complacent  reaction  from  the  vices  and 
pettiness  of  the  crowd  upon  the  superior  nobleness  of  their 
own  loyalty,  powers,  and  pursuits,  is  the  unfailing  internal 
support  of  the  truly  great 

God  forbid  that  the  highest  should  hate  or  insult  the 
lowest  And  it  is  not  their  true  nature  to  do  so.  They 
yearn  pityingly  over  their  farthest  inferiors.  Yet  it  is  vain 
to  attempt  to  hide  the  prodigious  disparity  between  them. 
And  when  those  beneath  force  this  disparity  on  the  notice 
of  those  above,  by  assuming  superiority,  it  is  not  to  be 
wondered  at  if  the  latter  experience  a  shock  of  revulsion. 
The  accusers  of  Socrates  arrogated  to  themselves  a  highey 
virtue  and  wisdom  than  his.  Undoubtedly  his  conscious- 
ness of  the  relative  moral  height  between  them  and  him- 
self was  a  godlike  consolation  to  him.  The  sublime 
courage  and  calmness  with  which  he  claimed  from  his 
judges,  instead  of  death,  a  support  by  the  city  as  a  public 
benefactor,  show  that  he  was  perfectly  aware  of  the  im- 
mense moral  distance  between  Socrates  and  Anytus,  Me- 
litus,  and  Lycon.  In  every  case  of  martyrdom,  perhaps 
the  cruellest  feature  is  the  self-assumed  superiority  implied 
by  the  judges  in  the  very  fact  of  condemning  their  victim  : 
his  greatest  support,  on  the  contrary,  must  come  from  the 
conviction  of  their  injustice  in  putting  him  to  death,  and 
of  his  own  worth  in  standing  loyally  by  his  duty.  There 
is  a  surpassing  heroism,  there  must  be  a  deep  pain,  and 


THE   SOLITUDE   OF   GENIUS.  7  <, 

there  certainly  is  a  terrible  loneliness  in  singly  confront- 
ing, as  so  many  noble  men  have  done,  an  infuriated  mob, 
to  stem  its  wrath,  stay  its  folly,  avert  its  vengeance,  even 
at  the  cost  of  falling  a  prey  to  its  headless  and  horrid 
passion.  Who  can  dwell  on  such  an  example  without  a 
pang  of  pity  and  a  thrill  of  grateful  admiration.  Surely 
no  one  can  recall,  without  profound  and  indignant  pain, 
how  the  horde  of  soldiery,  inflamed  with  hatred  for  the 
blameless  Ulpian,  the  immortal  jurisconsult  and  states- 
man of  Rome,  broke  into  the  palace  of  Severus  and  killed 
the  great  unspotted  lawyer  before  the  faces  of  the  empe- 
ror and  his  mother.  Who  can  read  of  the  good  Priest- 
ley, driven  "  by  the  madness  of  riot  from  the  town  which 
he  adorned  by  his  virtues,  his  philosophy,  and  his  fame," 
without  a  mingling  of  sorrow  for  the  confused  crowd  and 
of  homage  for  the  clear  individual  ?  Coleridge  paints  the 
scene  :  — 

Patriot  and  saint  and  sage, 
Him  full  of  years  from  his  loved  native  land, 
Statesmen  blood-stained  and  priests  idolatrous, 
By  dark  lies  maddening  the  blind  multitude, 
Drove  with  vain  hate.     Calm,  pitying,  he  retired, 
And  mused  expectant  on  the  coming  years. 

When  we  think  of  Alexander  Hamilton,  hooted  and 
stoned  in  the  streets  of  New  York,  in  what  relief  his 
beautiful  form  stands  out  against  the  howling  mass  of  ig- 
norance and  ferocity  below !  But  should  we  undertake 
to  make  a  list  of  the  wronged  and  hated  benefactors  of 
the  world,  the  exiled  or  martyred  guides  and  exemplars 
of  our  race,  up  to  the  crucifixion  of  the  Saviour,  there 
would  be  no  end  to  the  tearful  tale.  The  crowning  moral 
of  the  narrative  would  be  the  inspired  sentiment  sighed 
from  the  summit  of  Calvary,  "  Father,  forgive  them,  for 
they  know  not  what  they  do." 

But  since  man  was  made  for  society,  it  is  not  good  for 
him,  no  matter  how  great  he  is,  to  be  always  alone.  If 
he  is  doomed  to  be  so  his  lot  must  be  full  of  sad  wishes. 
There  are  wounds  the  world  cannot  balm,  wants  no  outer 
success  can  satisfy,  though  to  poor  and  cold  natures  these 
sharpest  of  griefs  are  never  known.  It  is  the  soft-hearted 


76  THE   SOLITUDES   OF   MAN, 

who  are  heavy-hearted.  The  loftiest  mind  may  shelter 
the  most,  but  it  must  be  the  least  sheltered.  There  is  no 
desertion  like  that  of  a  soul  sublimely  incongruous  with 
its  mates  and  with  the  conditions  of  its  time  and  place. 
The  choicest  hearts  are  the  ones  most  likely  to  know  the 
experiences  of  disappointment  and  cruelty  in  all  their 
wasting  bitterness.  Such  hearts  there  are,  which,  once 
misunderstood  and  aggrieved,  never  dare  to  confide  again. 
In  the  mournful  isolatedness  of  their  balked  yet  unap  • 
neasable  longings,  well  may  they  exclaim,  — 

Come,  Death,  and  match  thy  quiet  gloom 

With  being's  darkling  strife  ; 
Come,  set  beside  the  lonely  tomb, 

The  solitude  of  life !   • 

Generally  speaking,  the  man  of  genius  is  a  lonely  man, 
not  only  from  the  greatness  of  his  endowments,  the 
height  at  which  he  lives,  and  the  absorbing  action  of 
his  faculties,  but  also  from  his  scorn  of  conventionali- 
ties. Sneers  at  conventionality,  —  sneers  rising  from 
failure  to  see  its  inevitableness  and  use,  —  are  cheap. 
Conventionality  is  the  unavoidable  expression  of  social 
averages.  But  it  must  be  naturally  irksome  to  the  man 
of  genius,  who  belongs  outside  of  the  average.  How 
can  he  be  otherwise  than  solitary  when  he  sits  on  the 
great  white  throne  of  imagination,  gazing  at  the  panoram- 
ic phenomena  of  the  creation  in  the  light  of  transcenden- 
tal philosophies,  till  from  before  his  face  earth  and  heaven 
flee  away,  and  no  place  is  found  for  them  ?  Impatient  of 
custom,  contemptuous  of  fashionable  decrees,  he  must 
frequently  be  a  banished  man.  The  epicures,  the  butter- 
flies, the  selfish  plotters,  and  all  such,  cannot  understand 
him  ;  and  to  be  mentally  baffled  is  painful.  He  sets  an 
example  they  cannot  follow ;  and  to  feel  inferiority  is 
painful.  His  ideas  and  beliefs  are  strange  to  them, — 
apparently  inconsistent  with  the  familiar  ideas  and  beliefs 
with  which  they  identify  their  welfare,  perhaps  their  salva- 
tion ;  and  what  is  unintelligible  and  is  supposed  danger- 
ous, is  feared.  Accordingly  they  desire  to  rid  themselves 
of  his  presence.  The  great  man  acts  from  spontaneity ; 


THE   SOLITUDE   OF   GENIUS.  77 

society  acts  from  habit,  and  is  intolerant  of  original  ac- 
tion, because  it  makes  such  exorbitant  demands.  To  act 
conventionally  costs  little ;  to  act  from  fresh  impulse  re- 
quires a  large  supply  of  power.  Fashion  always  aims  to 
live  with  the  least  expenditure  of  force ;  genius  is  always 
seeking  outlets  for  its  overflowing  force.  Consequently 
luxurious  society  is  the  natural  enemy  of  genius,  and,  as 
far  as  it  can,  exiles  it  into  solitude. 

The  most  ignoble  men  —  still  more  than  average  men 
—  hate  the  superiors  whom  they  are  unable  to  appreciate. 
Their  thwarted  mental  reactions  generate  spite  and  wrath. 
Disappointed  of  the  husks  for  which  they  look,  they 
furiously  trample  the  pearls  they  know  not  what  to  do 
with,  and  bite  at  the  odious  hands  that  flung  them. 
True,  this  is  only  one  phase,  the  darker  side,  of  the 
facts.  Multitudes  of  men  are  full  of  reverential  devo- 
tion for  their  superiors.  Nevertheless  the  reality  of  this 
darker  side  is  fearful.  The  treatment  of  great  men  by 
the  world  in  all  ages  exemplifies  the  mysterious  law  of 
vicarious  redemption,  confirms  the  words  which  Jesus 
spoke  out  of  his  own  experience  :  "  Behold  I  send  unto 
you  prophets  and  wise  men  and  scribes ;  and  some  of 
them  ye  shall  kill  and  crucify,  and  some  of  them  ye  shall 
scourge  in  your  synagogues,  and  persecute  from  city  to 
city." 

Columbus  writes,  in  the  letter  to  Ferdinand  and  Isa- 
bella describing  his  fourth  voyage,  —  "  For  seven  years 
was  I  at  your  royal  court,  where  every  one  to  whom  the 
enterprise  was  mentioned  treated  it  as  ridiculous  ;  but 
now  there  is  not  a  man,  down  to  the  very  tailors,  who 
does  not  beg  to  be  allowed  to  become  a  discoverer.  It 
is  right  to  give  God  his  due,  and  to  receive  that  which 
belongs  to  one's  self.  This  is  a  just  sentiment  and  pro- 
ceeds from  just  feelings.  The  lands  in  this  part  of  the 
world,  which,  by  the  Divine  Will,  I  have  placed  under 
your  royal  sovereignty,  are  richer  and  more  extensive 
than  those  of  any  other  Christian  power ;  and  yet,  while 
I  was  waiting  for  ships  to  convey  me  in  safety,  and  with 
a  heart  full  of  joy,  to  your  royal  presence,  victoriously  to 
announce  the  news  of  the  gold  that  I  had  discovered,  I 


78  THE   SOLITUDES   OF   MAN. 

was  arrested  and  thrown,  with  my  two  brothers,  loadea 
with  irons,  into  a  ship,  stripped,  and  very  ill  treated, 
without  being  allowed  any  appeal  to  justice.  I  was 
twenty-eight  years  old  when  I  came  into  the  service  of 
your  Highnesses,  and  now  I  have  not  a  hair  upon  me 
that  is  not  gray  ;  my  body  is  infirm,  and  all  that  was  left 
to  me,  as  well  as  to  my  brothers,  has  been  taken  away 
and  sold,  even  to  the  frock  that  I  wore.  The  honest  de- 
votedness  that  I  have  ever  shown  to  the  service  of  your 
Majesties,  and  the  so  unmerited  outrage  with  which  it 
has  been  repaid,  will  not  allow  my  soul  to  keep  sileftce, 
however  much  I  may  wish  it  I  implore  your  Highnesses 
to  forgive  my  complaints.  Hitherto  I  have  wept  over 
others  ;  may  Heaven  now  have  mercy  upon  me,  and  may 
the  earth  weep  for  me  !  Solitary  in  my  trouble,  sick, 
in  daily  expectation  of  death,  surrounded  by  millions 
of  hostile  savages  full  of  cruelty,  and  thus  separated 
from  the  blessed  sacraments  of  our  Holy  Church,  how 
will  my  soul  be  forgotten  if  it  be'separated  from  the  body 
in  this  foreign  land  ?  Weep  for  me,  whoever  has  charity, 
truth  and  justice  !  I  humbly  beseech  your  Highnesses, 
that,  if  it  please  God  to  rescue  me  from  this  place,  you 
will  graciously  sanction  my  pilgrimage  to  Rome  and 
other  holy  places." 

A  majority  of  the  noblest  geniuses  who  have  conferred 
the  greatest  benefits  on  mankind,  have  been  spit  upon  01 
gnashed  at  and  banned  by  the  dominant  class  of  their 
contemporaries.  Prophets,  discoverers,  inventors,  mar- 
tyrs, illustrious  company  gathered  from  many  times  and 
countries,  and  associated  in  one  fellowship  of  sublime 
genius,  heroic  devotion,  and  tragic  fate,  —  history  has 
nothing  left  of  equal  pathos  to  reveal  when  it  has  shown  us 
these  men,  dreaded,  despised,  persecuted,  outcast,  dying, 
appealing  to  after  generations  to  do  them  the  justice  so 
cruelly  denied  in  their  own.  Nor  has  posterity  proved 
recreant  to  the  holy  trust.  They  are  revered  and  cele- 
brated now  with  an  enthusiasm  in  strange  contrast  with 
the  obloquy  they  suffered  when  alive.  And  to  enter  into 
sympathy  with  them  is  an  inexpressible  comfort  to  those 
who  in  later  times  are  called  to  a  kindred  experience.  As 


THE    SOLITU-DE   OF   GENIUS.  79 

Heine  says,  "  An  equally  great  man  sees  his  predecessors 
far  more  significantly  than  others  can.  From  a  single 
spark  of  the  traces  of  their  earthly  glory  he  recognizer 
their  most  secret  act ;  from  a  single  word  left  behind  he 
penetrates  every  fold  of  their  hearts  ;  and  thus  the  great 
men  of  all  times  live  in  a  mystical  brotherhood.  Across 
long  centuries  they  bow  to  each  other,  and  gaze  on  each 
other  with  significant  glances,  and  their  eyes  meet  over 
the  graves  of  buried  races  whom  they  have  thrust  aside 
between,  and  they  understand  and  love  each  other."  It 
is  delightful  to  notice  the  geniality  with  which,  in  his 
Cosmos,  the  grand  old  Humboldt  recognizes  his  great  pre- 
decessors in  the  enterprise  of  surveying  the  universe  as  a 
whole,  —  Strabo,  Eratosthenes,  Ptolemy,  Hipparchus,  Ga- 
len, Aristotle,  Lucretius,  the  elder  Pliny,  Albertus,  Roger 
Bacon,  Galileo,  Copernicus,  Newton,  and  the  rest, — with 
what  joy  and  piety  he  signalizes,  from  a  height  like  their 
own,  these  intellectual  peaks  looming  in  clouds  and  stars 
athwart  the  historic  table-land  of  science.  The  picture, 
in  the  New  Testament,  of  Jesus  on  the  Mount  of  Trans- 
figuration in  converse  with  Moses  and  Elias,  is  a  beauti- 
ful symbol  of  the  fellowship  of  the  highest  kindred  spirits 
in  all  ages. 

The  consciousness  of  thinking  and  feeling  in  unison 
with  a  multitude,  of  believing  doctrines  and  observing 
rites  in  common  with  the  great  majority  of  our  brethren, 
yields  to  sympathetic  genius  an  invisible,  peace-giving 
fellowship  which  causes  an  indescribable  pleasantness  to 
breathe  in  the  air,  an  infinite  friendliness  to  saturate  the 
landscape.  To  abandon  all  the  dear  familiar  beliefs  and 
associations  in  which  one  grew  up,  in  allegiance  to  reason 
to  go  exploringly  forwards  into  the  obscure  future  to  find 
some  better  substitutes,  more  divinely  real  and  solid,  is 
to  be,  at  least  temporarily,  like  one  who  advances  into 
a  cave  in  a  mountain  side  ;  the  sight  of  the  green  fields, 
the  light  of  the  sun,  the  sound  of  the  waterfall,  the  bleat 
of  the  goats,  and  the  songs  of  the  herdsmen,  all  becoming 
fainter  and  fainter,  until  he  is  lost  in  darkness  and  silence. 
It  is  impossible  that  severe  pangs  should  not  be  involved 
when  conscience  sternly  orders  a  sensitive  and  clinging 


8o  THE   SOLITUDES   OF   MAN. 

soul  to  renounce  prevalent  creeds,  to  cast  off  current 
prejudices  and  usages,  to  leave  popular  favor,  estranged, 
behind,  and  accept  newly  revealed  and  persecuted  truth 
with  its  austere  duties.  It  is  to  undergo  a  coronation  of 
hate  and  agony,  and,  carrying  a  crucifix  within  the  bosom, 
journey  on  a  lonesome  way  of  dolor,  publicly  shrouded 
in  scorn,  secretly  transfigured  with  the  smile  of  God. 
The  loneliest  of  all  mortals  are  the  pioneers  of  new  prin- 
ciples and  policies,  new  faiths  and  feelings ;  for  they 
alone  have  none  on  earth  with  whom  they  can  hold 
brotherhood  of  soul.  Having  emerged  from  the  beliefs 
in  which  they  were  educated,  thrown  away  habituated 
reliances,  trusting  themselves  to  original  perception  as 
they  advance  into  the  unknown,  out  of  which  new  reve- 
lations are  breaking  on  them,  their  solitude  is  sometimes 
as  appalling  as  the  experience  of  one  who  for  the  first 
time  rides  on  a  locomotive  across  a  midnight  prairie, 
where,  through  the  level  gloom,  he  seems  just  plunging 
off  the  world  into  banks  of  stars. 

The  bigotry  of  those  whose  opinions  he  rejected  has 
succeeded  in  attaching  an  unjust  odium  to  the  name  of 
David  Hume,  who  was  a  man  of  remarkable  goodness 
of  heart  and  life.  He  was  endowed  with  a  mind  of 
wonderful  acuteness  and  strength,  exceedingly  suggestive 
and  stimulative  in  its  working  on  other  minds.  His  place 
in  the  history  of  philosophy  is  of  epochal  importance. 
Kant  ascribes  his  own  original  work,  of  such  immense 
moment,  to  the  impulse  directly  imparted  to  him  by 
Hume.  One  of  the  results  of  his  unsettling  inquiries, 
his  idealistic  speculations,  has  been  thus  impressively 
depicted  by  himself.  "  I  am  affrighted  and  confounded 
with  that  forlorn  solitude  in  which  I  am  placed  in  my 
philosophy,  and  fancy  myself  some  strange  uncouth  mon- 
ster, who,  not  being  able  to  mingle  and  unite  in  society, 
has  been  expelled  all  human  commerce,  and  left  utterly 
abandoned  and  disconsolate.  Fain  would  I  run  into  the 
crowd  for  shelter  and  warmth,  but-  I  cannot  prevail  with 
myself  to  mix  with  such  deformity.  I  call  upon  others 
to  join  me,  in  order_  to  make  a  company  apart,  but  no 
one  will  hearken  to  me.  Every  one  keeps  at  a  distance, 


THE   SOLITUDE  OF   GENIUS.  8l 

and  dreads  that  storm  which  beats  upon  me  from  every 
side.  I  have  exposed  myself  to  the  enmity  of  all  meta- 
physicians, logicians,  mathematicians,  and  even  theo- 
logians ;  and  can  I  wonder  at  the  insults  I  must  suffer  ? 
When  I  look  abroad,  I  foresee  on  every  side  dispute, 
contradiction,  anger,  calumny  and  detraction.  When  I 
turn  my  eye  inward,  I  find  nothing  but  doubt  and  igno- 
rance. All  the  world  conspires  to  oppose  and  contradict , 
me  ;  though  such  is  my  weakness  that  I  feel  all  my  opin- 
ions loosen  and  fall  of  themselves,  when  unsupported  by 
the  approbation  of  others." 

What  other  experience  can  be  so  forsaken  and  grand 
as  the  loneliness  of  the  man  who  has  outgrown  the  opin- 
ions of  his  age,  surveyed  all  the  realms  of  knowledge 
and  theory  thus  far  achieved,  traversed  the  constellated 
wastes  of  spiritual  space  to  the  outermost  verge  of 
thought,  where  he  confronts  the  scintillating  abyss  of 
mystery,  leaves  contemporary  humanity  behind,  pitches 
his  tent  a  hundred  leagues  ahead  of  his  nearest  peer, 
and  lives  there,  striving  to  conquer  fresh  realms  for  the 
occupation  of  posterity  ?  He  may  be  happy  even  in  that 
forlorn  station  if  he  preserves  a  noble  heart  of  kindness 
to  his  kind,  and  a  spirit  of  self-surrendering  trust  in  God. 
Such  a  man  needs  not  recognition  by  official  diplomas. 
Load  him  with  conventional  honors,  he  would  lay  the 
trinkets  aside,  and  retire  into  himself  to  commune  with 
his  true  dignity.  He  is  an  emperor,  himself  his  empire. 
He  will  not  in  his  self-sufficingness  forget  the  dependence 
of  feebler  natures,  nor  cease  to  yearn  over  them  in  their 
wants  and  sorrows.  Though  isolated  from  the  people  by 
his  intellectual  transcendency,  he  will  be  joined  with 
them  by  his  affections  and  services ;  as  the  snow-capped 
summit  of  Dhawalaghiri  commerces  with  the  sky  in  inac- 
cessible solitude,  while  his  gushing  streams  and  his  slopes 
of  bloom  wed  him  with  the  plains.  Should  the  lofty 
thinker  lose  his  confidence  in  reason  and  truth,  and  give 
way  to  a  fundamental  distrust,  —  as  the  tendencies  are 
often  so  terrible  in  him  to  do,  —  becoming  a  misanthrope 
and  an  atheist,  —  his  experience  maybe  compared  with 
the  fate  of  that  aeronaut  who  ascended  into  the  congeal- 
4*  F 


82  THE   SOLITUDES   OF   MAN. 

ing  space  until  he  suffocated  from  the  thinness  of  the  air, 
and  his  frozen  form,  borne  in  the  fragile  car,  floated  about 
at  the  will  of  the  atmospheric  currents  in  the  cold  un- 
sounding  vastitude,  under  the  dark  sky-vault,  the  earth 
shrunk  into  a  great  ball  below. 


The  Solitude  of  Death. 

IN  this  attempt  to  describe  the  loneliness  of  human  life 
in  its  various  kinds  and  relations,  one  more  specification 
remains,  —  the  solitude  of  death.  However  filled  with 
the  strife  and  the  gayety  of  bustling  throngs- the  life  of  the 
toiling  citizen,  the  queen  of  fashion,  or  the  popular  states- 
man may  be,  there  is  one  passage  of  intense  isolation 
which  none  can  escape. 

A  lonely  hour  is  on  its  way  to  each, 

To  all ;  for  death  knows  no  companionship. 

The  approach  of  a  mortal  towards  the  bourn  of  his  earthly 
destiny  is  a  pilgrimage  in  which  all  that  composes  his  ex- 
ternal company  successively  falls  away ;  and  as  he  reaches 
the  brink  of  the  mystery,  the  last  friend  shrinks  back  and 
leaves  him  singly  to  the  universal  Parent.  Ought  we  not 
often  to  be  alone  with  God  in  anticipation  of  the  hour 
when  He  alone  will  be  with  us  ? 

Death  invests  every  man  with  a  solemn  sphere  of  soli- 
tude, —  the  patriarch  amidst  his  tribe,  the  victim  on  the 
rack,  the  felon  on  the  gibbet,  the  gladiator  in  the  arena, 
the  martyr  in  the  flame,  the  saint  on  his  pallet,  smiling  at 
the  uplifted  cross.  Yet  there  are  different  densities  of 
loneliness  in  the  experience,  between  the  departures  from 
the  sobs  and  clasped  hands  of  loving  families,  the  cold 
isolation  of  suicides,  and  the  horrible  desertedness  of 
such  fates  as  those  of  the  forsaken  Roman  emperors,  — 
Tiberius,  Caligula,  Domitian,  Nero  and  Vitellius,  extin- 
guished in  the  darkness  of  murder  and  ashes.  Despite 
the  disparities,  however,  there  is  a  fundamental  identity  in 
the  last  moment.  In  every  case,  to  die  is  to  break,  one 
after  another,  the  ties  that  bind  us  to  persons  and  things, 


THE   SOLITUDE   OF   DEATH.  83 

and,  retreating  into  utter  seclusion,  migrate,  silent  and 
.separate,  to  the  ultimate  secret  of  the  universe.  Who- 
ever contemplatively  envelopes  himself  in  that  boundless 
mystery,  the  idea  of  death,  feels  as  one  who,  lost  on  some 
strange  heath,  is  wrapped  in  a  night  without  a  taper  or  a 
star.  All  clews  lost  in  the  gloom,  his  unshared  individu- 
ality revolves  within  itself  in  appalled  wonderment,  an 
atom  cut  loose  from  social  laws  and  plunging  through  im- 
mensity. Think  of  it  beforehand,  or  not  think  of  it,  all 
must  at  last  come  to  this.  Noisy  and  crowded  as  our 
walks  are,  social  and  garrulous  as  our  life  is,  every  human 
being  has  at  least  three  moments  of  incommunicable  sep- 
aration. As  the  Hindu  says,  "  Alone  man  is  born ;  alone 
he  dies  ;  alone  he  goes  up  to  judgment." 

The  sentiment  of  loneliness  pervades  everything  asso- 
ciated with  death.  The  monarch,  watched  by  attendants, 
never  free  from  obsequious  company,  is  touched  at  last 
by  the  wand  of  dissolution.  His  palace  dwindles  to  a 
coffin,  his  empire  narrows  to  a  grave.  How  quickly 
slaves  and  courtiers,  soldiers  and  people,  shrink  away 
and  leave  him  to  be  forever  alone  !  Terrible  lessons  are 
taught  by  the  sight  of  a  tyrant  in  the  hands  of  death. 
Who  can  gaze  on  such  a  spectacle  and  retain  cruel  am- 
bition in  his  heart  ?  The  imagination  demands  a  certain 
isolation  and  solemnity  as  the  fit  accompaniment  of  every 
picture  of  death.  A  fop,  like  Brummel,  lying  dead  in  his 
garret,  affects  us  with  a  melancholy  incongruity.  Meant 
to  flutter  in  the  sunshine  of  fashion,  he  is  a  dismal  sight  in 
the  grim  storm  and  tragedy  of  mortality,  —  a  belated  but- 
terfly frozen  on  a  leaf.  Much  more  becoming  was  the 
funeral  environment  of  the  old  Norse  sea-king.  Death- 
struck,  he  seated  himself  on  the  deck  of  his  ship,  had  her 
set  on  fire  and  launched  before  the  gale.  His  sword  in 
his  hand,  his  white  hair  streaming,  he  vanished  from  sight, 
and,  perishing  in  this  gallant  pyre,  was  "  buried  at  once  in 
the  solitude  of  the  sea  and  of  the  sky." 

Graves  are  solitary,  however  thickly  they  lie  together. 
There  is  no  other  lonesomeness  in  nature  so  deep  as  that 
which  broods  over  the  tombs  of  men  and  nations.  The 
visitor  who  pauses  in  the  huge  catacombs  of  Thebes 


84  THE   SOLITUDES   OF   MAN. 

stuffed  with  death,  the  hollowed  hills  so  heaped  with 
stacks  of  bandaged  humanity  that  they  are  but  thinly 
masked  mountains  of  mummies,  feels  for  a  time  as  if  he 
were  the  survivor  of  a  world.  Go  to  one  of  the  skeleton 
kingdoms  of  the  East.  Pitch  your  tent  beneath  the  palms. 
Gaze  around  on  the  scene  of  ruin  where  once  a  nation  of 
heroes  sunk  into  their  urns,  and  where,  in  a  subsequent 
age,  the  dust  of  those  heroes,  spilt  from  their  shattered 
urns,  was  blown  about  the  desert,  —  and  it  will  only  be 
natural  if  the  Spirit  of  Desolation  sighs  through  your  soul 
a  lament  as  mystic  as  that  of  the  summer-breeze  soughing 
through  the  pines  laden  with  tales  from  a  primeval  antiq- 
uity. Ponder  on  the  fate  of  your  race  from  its  unknown 
beginning  till  now,  see  the  procession  of  the  innumer- 
able generations  of  the  dead  steadily  defiling  into  the 
grave,  —  and  the  whole  earth  is  a  funeral  barrow. 

Not  only  is  there  a  solitude  in  death  itself  as  experi- 
enced by  the  dying,  and  an  air  of  solitude  around  all  the 
places  and  mementos  of  death ;  there  is  an  unparalleled 
loneliness  created  by  death  in  the  lot  and  feeling  of  him 
who,  enduring  loss  after  loss,  grows  old  in  an  ever-widen- 
ing circle  of  missings  and  estrangement.  "  To  a  man," 
Dr.  Johnson  said,  "  who  has  survived  all  the  companions 
of  his  youth,  this  full-peopled  world  is  a  dismal  solitude." 
A  heart-breaking  sense  of  desertion  must  be  felt  by  the 
last  member  of  a  decayed  family,  his  ancestral  castle  dis- 
mantled, the  proud  crest  bowed,  the  escutcheon  dimmed 
with  poverty  and  shame,  the  familiar  glories  of  hearth  and 
song  become  a  tradition.  It  is  more  impressive  still  to 
imagine  the  loneliness  of  the  last  representative  of  a  once 
puissant  race  who  ruled  hill  and  glen,  but  whose,  tents  and 
banners  have  faded  from  the  landscape,  and  whose  weap- 
ons moulder  in  the  dust.  The  Indian  chief  returns  from 
far  to  stand  in  the  light  of  the  setting  sun  on  the  burial- 
mound  of  his  fathers ;  he  muses  there  in  mournful  taci- 
turnity till  the  white  man's  step  is  heard,  then  glides  into 
the  woods,  adding  to  the  twilight  forest  one  shado\v  more. 

There  is  a  deep  loneliness  too  in  all  the  preparatory 
steps  and  approaches  to  death.  Who  can  fitly  describe 
the  solitude  of  extreme  age  ?  The  feeling  of  desertedness 


THE   SOLITUDE   OF   DEATH.  85 

and  separation  of  an  old  man,  who  has  survived  all  his 
contemporaries,  survived  the  copiousness  and  fire  of  his 
own  heart,  —  this  is  loneliness  indeed.  And  we  are  all 
relatively  old,  —  have  outlived  many  dear  comrades  and 
dreams,  out-grown  many  darling  hopes  and  plans.  When 
we  think  of  our  school-days ;  when,  even  in  middle  age, 
we  recall  the  fair  and  guileless  companions  whose  eyes, 
that  looked  all  the  tenderness  of  romance  into  ours,  are 
dust  now,  whose  feet,  that  once  sprang  with  ours  in  elas- 
tic joy  over  hillock  and  stream,  now  lie  bound  and  still,  — 
many  a  bolt  of  lonesome  sorrow  pierces  the  heart.  By- 
ron, old  while  he  was  yet  young,  asks,  on  hearing  of  thft 
death  of  one  of  his  early  friends, — 

What  is  the  worst  of  woes  that  wait  on  age  ? 
What  stamps  the  wrinkle  deeper  on  the  brow  ? 

And  then  he  answers,  with  the  startling  emphasis  that 
belonged  to  his  intense  and  suffering  genius, — 

To  view  each  loved  one  blotted  from  life's  page, 
And  be  alone  on  earth,  as  I  am  now. 

The  Wandering  Jew,  cursed  with  earthly  immortality,  see- 
ing generation  after  generation  disappear  from  the  scene 
of  his  pilgrimage,  whatever  he  clasped  to  his  breast  imme- 
diately dropping  into  dust  upon  it,  was  forever  alone,  his 
yearning  agony  itself  an  awful  solitude  wherever  he  went. 
Who  lives  too  long  in  this  world  of  evanescent  things 
must,  perforce,  in  some  degree,  taste  that  dreary  expe- 
rience. 

There  is,  occasionally  experienced  by  many  in  their 
early  years,  an  enchanted  solitude,  in  which  ecstasy  ab- 
sorbs them  and  makes  them  oblivious  of  everything  but 
itself:  this  is  rarely  known  after  youth  has  ended,  except 
by  natural  poets,  romantic  souls,  remaining  ever  young. 

When  youth,  the  dream,  departs, 
It  takes  something  from  our  hearts, 
And  it  never  comes  again. 

In  dismal  contrast  with  this  there  is  a  disenchanted  soli- 
tude, in  which  all  the  genial  aspects  of  society  are  hidden, 


86  THE   SOLITUDES    OF   MAN. 

every  generous  illusion  destroyed,  and  existence  left  a 
haggard  waste.  Such  is  that  cynical  condition  in  which 
some  men  find  themselves  in  the  closing  period  of  life, 
tyrannical,  irritable,  with  the  temper  of  a  hyena. 

In  extreme  age,  when  the  last  friend  has  gone,  and  the 
last  hope  of  earth  ceased  to  charm,  the  old  man,  deserted 
and  doleful,  stands  on  the  dull  plain  strewn  with  the 
wrecks  of  youth,  like  a  despairing  mourner  in  a  grave- 
yard, where  the  moonshine  lies  on  the  motionless  scene, 
and  excited  fancy  turns  every  tombstone  into  a  ghost, 
and  takes  every  shadow  for  an  omen.  And  he  looks 
around  in  vain  for  a  hand  to  clasp,  or  a  heart  to  quicken 
his  by  its  responsive  beatings.  This  loneliness  is  so 
sharp  and  profound  because  of  the  contrast  between  the 
memory  of  the  past  and  the  consciousness  of  the  present 
What  was  stands  in  sunlight  there,  what  is  rests  in  shad- 
ow here ;  and  the  opposition  of  the  pictures  makes  the 
lonesome  soul  doubly  lonesome.  It  is  thus  with  the  ruins 
of  abbeys ;  these  are  so  intensely  solitary  from  the  con- 
trast which  haunts  the  imagination  of  the  pilgrim,  between 
the  former  show  of.  processions,  chants,  church-banners, 
bells,  censers,  and  hymns,  and  the  present  scene  of  silence 
and  decay,  roofless  walls,  ivy-grown  arches,  great  trees 
growing  in  the  aisles,  foxes  burrowing  in  the  refectory, 
rooks  and  daws  perched  on  the  mouldy  brackets. 

More  appalling,  however,  to  the  spectator,  than  this 
solitude  of  bereft  old  age,  or  any  experience  of  physical 
dissolution,  is  that  solitude  of  madness  sometimes  exhib- 
ited, a  death-in-life  existence,  the  virtual  destruction  of 
the  mind,  the  temporary  suppression  of  the  soul.  There 
are  patients  in  asylums  of  the  insane,  who  are  so  shut  up 
in  one  mood,  so  possessed  by  one  thought,  that  nothing 
else  can  reach  them.  The  convulsion  of  some  tremen- 
dous moment  has  petrified  the  before  flexible  mechanism 
of  the  brain  so  as  to  allow  the  forces  of  consciousness 
to  operate  only  in  one  way  and  to  one  result.  They 
turn  their  faces  to  the  wall,  taking  no  interest  in  anything 
more,  never  looking  up,  never  speaking  again.  In  a 
dumb,  impassive,  fearful  solitude  they  abide,  till  death, 
the  great  deliverer,  comes.  Then,  at  length,  they  go 


THE   SOLITUDE   OF   DEATH.  87 

forth,  like  all  the  rest  of  us,  each  one  alone,  to  encoun- 
ter the  dark  secret  which  both  repels  and  invites,  and  is 
at  once  unavoidable,  insoluble,  and  eternal. 

What  other  solitariness  is  conceivable  so  unrelieved  as 
that  of  the  unhappy  lunatic  who  was  convinced  that  he 
should  never  die,  but  as  a  punishment  of  his  demerit 
should  be  kept  forever  alone  in  the  world  when  all  other 
men  were  dead  ?  Ah  !  lonely  and  dread  as  death  appears 
to  many,  it  is  unspeakably  sweet  and  welcome  when  it 
comes  at  last  to  one  weary  of  the  hubbub,  and  sick  of 
the  insufficiency,  of  earth.  It  is  easy  for  such  an  one  to 
sympathize  with  what  the  dying  Howard  said  when  seized 
by  an  infectious  fever  at  Kherson,  in  the  midst  of  his  phil- 
anthropic labors,  far  from  home  and  friends.  "  Lay  me 
quietly  in  the  earth,  place  a  sundial  over  my  grave,  and 
let  me  be  forgotten."  Such  was  the  trustful  resignation 
of  the  mind,  such  the  complete  weariness  of  the  flesh, 
that  he  shrank  from  the  effort  of  the  thought  of  fame. 
This  desire  to  cease  and  be  forgotten  is  the  divinely 
natural  preparation  for  our  transition  into  futurity.  The 
passion  for  life  sinking  parallel  with  the  failing  force  of 
the  organism,  the  two  go  quietly  out  together,  so  that 
there  is  no  rebellion.  If  the  theologians,  with  their  su- 
perstitions and  artificial  horrors,  will  but  let  him  alone, 
man  is  competent  to  death  as  well  as  to  life,  and  dies  in 
peace. 

Death  is  a  new  thing  to  every  one  who  experiences  it. 
Neither  is  it  the  same  thing  to  any  two  persons ;  for  each 
brings  to  it  his  own  special  qualities  and  accumulated 
experience.  What  a  different  thing  death  is  to  one  whose 
thought  includes  and  whose  sensibility  overspreads  the 
whole  world,  and  to  one  whose  consciousness  is  commen- 
surate with  little  more  than  his  own  person  and  the  sensi- 
ble facts  closely  about .  him !  To  the  latter  it  is  as  the 
mere  physical  expiration  of  an  animal ;  to  the  former  it 
is  as  the  collapse  of  a  solar  system.  It  has  been  said 
that  murderers  have  met  their  doom  on  the  gibbet  with 
more  fortitude  than  Christ  on  the  cross.  Not  with  more 
fortitude,  but  with  more  insensibility.  The  ruffian  dies 
like  a  wild  beast  at  bay.  The  infinitely  diffused  and  in- 


88  THE   SOLITUDES   OF   MAN. 

tense  sensibility  of  Jesus  made  his  death  like  the  sepa 
ration  of  a  universe. 

It  is  an  affecting  peculiarity  of  man  that  he  shrinks 
with  strong  antipathy  from  the  thought  of  dying  alone  or 
among  strangers.  He  would  have  friendly  eyes  look  on 
him,  feel  the  clasp  of  a  familiar  hand,  in  that  silent  im- 
mense passage  of  his  being.  All  things  but  man,  when 
fatally  hurt  or  spent,  retreat  to  die  in  solitude ;  they  are 
afraid  of  being  attacked  in  their  weakness.  If  a  wolf 
so  much  as  limps,  the  other  wolves  tear  him  in  pieces. 
Instinctively,  therefore,  the  dying  animal  seeks  a  secret 
corner.  But  man,  with  a  few  abnormal  exceptions,  never 
wishes  to  die  without  some  one  near  to  count  his  sighs, 
watch  his  ebbing  moments,  and  mark  his  last  gasp.  It 
is  a  pathetic  proof  of  his  natural  sociality.  Sympathy  is 
deeper  than  fear,  and  in  the  final  failure  of  his  own  force, 
in  the  upheaval  of  the  bottom  of  his  soul,  he  puts  distrust 
and  hate  aside,  and  clings  to  his  kind  with  a  loving  ex- 
pectation of  help.  But  no  companionship  of  other  wis- 
dom or  love  can  avail  or  endure  there.  Personal  insight 
and  trust  of  the  truth,  personal  surrender  to  the  Abso- 
lute Spirit,  —  these  only  can  stay  and  comfort  then. 
Though  outwardly  girt  by  the  fondest  comrades,  in- 
wardly alone,  each  one  casts  his  material  investiture, 
eludes  their  grasp  and  their  gaze,  and  slips  separately 
into  his  curtained  fate.  The  loneliness  of  dying  is  like 
the  loneliness  of  the  sea,  whereon  many  ships  cross  and 
pass  without  speaking.  So  do  many  human  beings  die 
simultaneously,  but  make  no  signals  to  each  other  as  the 
wonted  shores  recede,  and  the  breath  of  the  Infinite 
swells  the  unseen  sail,  and  the  gray  waste  looms  in  the 
silence  of  its  immemorial  mystery. 


THE    MORALS    OF    SOLITUDE. 


THE    MORALS   OF   SOLITUDE. 


The  Dangers  of  Solitude. 

THE  topic  next  to  be  treated  is  the  perversions  and 
dangers  of  solitude.  In  attempting  a  general  survey  and 
application  of  the  lessons  of  this  part  of  the  subject, 
scrupulous  care  is  needed  to  avoid  errors  and  exaggera- 
tions. At  the  start  it  should  be  understood  that  there  is 
no  magic  in  seclusion  itself  to  make  any  one  strong  or 
wise  or  good.  A  man  may  keep  by  himself  because  he 
is  a  fool  or  a  knave,  and  become  the  greater  fool  or  knave 
by  doing  so.  The  benefits  of  retirement  are  not  the  re- 
sults of  a  charm,  but  the  fruits  of  a  law  faithfully  ob- 
served. The  secrets  and  blessings  resident  in  solitude 
must  be  wrung  from  it  by  our  energy  ;  they  will  not  spon- 
taneously drop  into  our  laps  as  we  approach,  any  more 
than  the  arrow-headed  inscriptions  in  the  desert  yielded 
the  ancient  history  locked  up  in  their  cipher  to  the  car- 
avans and  armies  that  for  so  many  ages  ignorantly  trav- 
elled by  them.  Solitude  works  on  each  one  and  con- 
tributes to  him  after  his  own  kind.  It  may  make  a 
prophet  or  an  idiot.  It  excites,  concentrates,  and  forti- 
fies the  faculties  of  a  strong  and  studious  soul,  but  bewil- 
ders and  dissipates  those  of  a  weak  and  wandering  one. 
The  great  argument  against  the  system  of  solitary  con- 
finement in  penitentiaries  is  that  it  destroys  the  minds  of 
those  subjected  to  it.  Solitude  has  imbecility  for  one  of 
its  handmaids.  It  was  found,  when  the  separate  and 
silent  system  was  introduced  into  the  Pennsylvania 
prison,  almost  impossible  to  prevent  the  convicts  from 
climbing  up  to  the  windows  to  salute  each  other,  and 


92  THE   MORALS   OF   SOLITUDE. 

from  conversing  through  the  walls  of  adjacent  cells  by 
signals,  —  so  fierce  was  the  demand  of  nature  for  sympa- 
thetic communication.  We  must  not  let  the  philosophic 
and  poetic  side  of  the  subject  fascinate  us,  and  prevent 
our  seeing  that  all  depends  on  the  kind  of  solitude,  the 
kind  of  soul,  the  kind  of  activity  between  them.  We 
should  remember  that  there  is  the  solitary  worm  as  well 
as  the  solitary  eagle.  One  is  more  likely  to  prefer  to  be 
alone  because  he  is  too  poor  or  too  bad  to  furnish  the 
conditions  for  agreeable  company,  than  because  he  can- 
not find  company  worthy  of  him.  It  is  so  much  easier 
to  get  along  where  there  is  no  one  to  thwart,  contra- 
dict, or  irk.  Wisdom  is  given  to  deep  reflection,  and 
lonely  reflection  makes  wise.  Fools  chatter;  the  gods 
are  silent.  Though  this  is  undeniable,  there  is  truth  on 
the  other  side  too.  A  sage  is  not  unfrequently  as  talka- 
tive as  a  gossip.  Ripe  experience  is  fondly  apt  to  teach. 
Earnestness  is  as  much  akin  to  oratory  as  it  is  to  reverie. 
A  busy  tongue  may  be  the  vehicle,  as  well  as  the  substi- 
tute, for  a  busy  brain.  If  geese  fly  in  a  flock,  while  the 
condor  preys  alone,  the  moral  qualities  of  the  goose  are 
better  than  those  of  the  condor,  and,  undoubtedly,  it  is 
the  happier  bird.  The  portentous  gravity  of  the  hermit 
owl  covers  not  so  much  wisdom  as  the  frolics  of  the  so- 
cial swallow.  There  is  no  virtue  in  mere  loneliness  to 
dignify  the  fop  or  regenerate  the  fool,  to  purify  a  rake  or 
make  a  soulless  hunks  a  generous  lover.  And  when  such 
as  these  affect  it,  the  affectation  is  but  another  vent  of 
their  folly,  a  trick  of  vanity.  The  solitary  often  occupy 
themselves  with  trivialities  instead  of  grandeurs.  A  fa- 
mous pillar-saint  was  observed,  on  the  top  of  his  column, 
to  touch  his  forehead  to  his  feet  twelve  hundred  and 
forty-three  times  without  intermission.  The  emperor 
Domitian,  whose  congested  vanity  made  him  ostenta- 
tious of  courting  sage  retirement,  was  discovered  in  his 
seclusion  stabbing  flies  with  a  bodkin. 

Solitude  is  the  retreat  of  the  defeated  as  much  as  it  is 
the  home  of  the  self-sufficing.  Ignatius  Loyola  once  said 
to  a  young  member  of  his  order,  who,  on  account  of  his 
great  susceptibility  to  anger,  was  accustomed  frequently 


THE   DANGERS   OF   SOLITUDE.  93 

Co  avoid  his  companions  and  remain  apart :  "  Irritability 
and  choler  are  not  to  be  conquered  by  flight,  but  by  com- 
bat ;  solitude  will  not  destroy  them,  it  will  only  conceal 
them."  How  these  words  must  thrill  through  the  ranks 
of  congenial  souls ;  a  blast  from  the  trumpet  of  the  sol- 
dier of  eternity !  He  adds,  "  You  will  sacrifice  more  to 
God,  you  will  gain  more  for  yourself,  by  acts  of  mortifi- 
cation in  your  intercourse  with  your  brethren  than  if  you 
were  to  bury  yourself  in  a  cavern  and  to  pass  a  whole 
year  in  complete  silence."  One  of  the  dangers  of  a  re- 
treat is  the  fallacy  of  believing  that  we  are  destroying, 
while  really  we  are  only  hiding,  our  vices.  Many  find  it 
an  easier  art  to  live  alone  than  with  their  fellows,  because 
there  they  have  but  one  to  quarrel  with,  and  that  one 
the  most  obsequious  of  flatterers.  It  is  a  higher  accom- 
plishment to  harmonize  with  all  than  it  is  to  melodize 
alone.  The  former  feat  is  to  the  latter  as  a  perfect  com- 
position in  counterpoint  is  to  a  good  solo.  There  is 
ground  for  Shenstone's  rebuke,  — 

In  cloistered  state  let  selfish  sages  dwell, 
Proud  that  their  heart  is  narrow  as  their  cell. 

The  truth  is,  man  is  both  a  gregarious  and  a  solitary 
animal,  as  much  made  for  society  as  for  solitude,  and  as 
much  for  solitude  as  for  society.  His  true  life,  in  a  healthy 
state,  is  an  alternation  from  one  to  the  other,  in  due  pro 
portion.  To  live  exclusively  in  either  proves  disease, 
works  ill.  The  office  of  each  is  to  fit  for  the  other,  and 
lead  to  it  There  is  something  wrong  in  him  whose 
lonely  interviews  with  nature  make  him  dislike  to  meet 
men ;  something  wrong  in  him  whose  association  with 
men  unfits  him  to  enjoy  retirement.  The  one  should 
send  him  to  the  other  with  a  renewed  relish.  As  Cole- 
ridge says  in  his  poem  to  Charles  Lloyd, 

If  this  green  mountain  't  were  most  sweet  to  climb,. 
E'en  while  the  bosom  ached  with  loneliness,  — 
How  heavenly  sweet  if  some  dear  friend  should  bless 
The  adventurous  toil,  and  up  the  path  sublime 
Now  lead,  now  follow, — the  glad  landscape  round 
Wide  and  more  wide  increasing  without  bound  1 


94  THE   MORALS   OF   SOLITUDE. 

Society  and  solitude  ought  to  rectify  and  supplement  each 
other,  somewhat  as  the  states  of  waking  and  slumber  do. 
One  is  comparatively  for  observation  and  comparison  ; 
the  other  for  rumination  and  digestion.  Among  men  we 
obtain  the  food  of  the  spirit ;  apart  from  them  we  assimi- 
late it.  But  it  should  never  be  forgotten  that  we  are  far 
less  what  solitude  makes  us  than  solitude  is  what  we 
make  it.  Its  influence  on  us  depends  on  the  character 
we  carry  into  it,  and  the  improvement  we  make  of  it.  Its 
vagueness  ungirds  and  empties  an  aimless  soul.  But  a 
man  with  a  mighty  purpose  finds  room  and  leisure  and  in- 
vitations in  it  for  his  imagination  to  work  and  react  until 
all  the  centres  of  association,  the  batteries  of  his  mind,  are 
charged  with  magnetic  ideas.  What  is  the  true  zest  of 
life  ?  An  absorbing  object.  Patrocl.us  in  the  tent  with 
Achilles,  Audubon  with  his  rifle  in  the  wilderness, 
Kant  buried  in  thought  among  his  books,  Humboldt 
climbing  the  side  of  Chimborazo,  Fenelon  chastening 
his  self-love  on  the  way  to  perfection,  —  under  the  differ- 
ences in  all  these  there  is  an  identity  of  joy,  namely,  the 
fruition  accompanying  the  pursuit  of  an  aim.  If  we  re- 
treat from  observation  for  the  sake  of  dawdling  indolence 
or  other  form  of  self-indulgence,  the  retreat  is  pernicious; 
but  if  we  withdraw  to  cherish  a  keener  and  deeper  devo- 
tion to  some  noble  aim,  to  prevent  our  purposes  from 
being  worn  down  and  frittered  away  by  the  petty  fric- 
tions of  petty  people,  it  is  sanative,  holy,  inspiring.  Grat- 
ification, made  selfish  by  isolation,  is  degraded  from  the 
level  it  naturally  holds  when  shared  with  others.  Men, 
devouring  their  food  in  solitude  with  mere  physical  greed, 
approximate  swine  swallowing  their  swill ;  men,  seasoning 
their  food  with  conversation  and  affection,  approximate 
the  gods  taking  their  ambrosia. 

First,  solitude  is  what  we  make  it ;  then,  we  are  what  it 
makes  us.'  To  the  poetic  and  spiritually-minded  religion- 
ist, solitude  is  "  the  voluntary  winding-sheet  in  which  he 
wraps  himself  to  taste  the  voluptuousness  of  being  dead 
to  earth."  To  the  ambitious  and  carnally-minded  world- 
ling, solitude  is  a  camera-obscura  into  which  he  retreats, 
sitting  there,  himself  unseen,  to  study  society,  to  prepare 


THE  DANGERS   OF   SOLITUDE.  95 

his  plots  and  traps  ere  he  sallies  out  to  take  it  captive. 
A  neutral  mind  left  alone,  with  its  squandering  vague- 
ness, legitimately  ends  in  collapse ;  a  mind  intent  on  a 
good  aim  is  benignly  strengthened ;  a  mind  intent  on  a 
bad  aim  is  perniciously  strengthened.  There  is,  there- 
fore, in  mere  solitude  itself,  no  spell  to  exorcise  and  bless 
its  votaries.  All  the  blessings  it  is  capable  of  yielding 
are  to  be  drawn  from  it  by  a  faithful  observance  of  the 
conditions  of  its  improvement.  Beckford,  the  gifted  but 
wayward  and  unhappy  author  of  Vathek,  suffered  contin- 
ually, in  his  own  touching  phrase,  from  "  the  faint  sick 
ness  of  a  wounded  heart."  In  vain  did  he  try,  with  every 
outward  advantage,  first  the  most  brilliant  publicity,  then 
the  most  profound  privacy.  Neither  could  successfully 
medicate  the~fatal  wound  which  was  —  himself. 

Comparatively  few  can  afford  to  do  without  the  animat- 
ing motives  of  fellowship  and  publicity.  Solitude  is  the 
breeding-place  of  fear.  Nowhere  else  does  superstition 
thrive  so  well.  Bentham  observed,  "  Many  a  one  who 
laughs  at  hobgoblins  in  company,  dreads  them  when 
alone."  Where  one  man  is  brave  by  himself,  twenty  are 
brave  before  a  multitude;  he  is  a  high  and  powerful  char- 
acter who  is  equally  brave  in  both  situations.  Some  when 
undisturbed  by  a  foreign  presence  spontaneously  imp 
their  wings  for  a  flight  into  the  highest  regions  of  romance 
and  nobleness ;  others  sink  if  not  incited  by  the  con- 
sciousness of  being  on  exhibition.  He  is  of  a  royal  spirit 
who  can  make  the  holy  stimulus  of  duty  perform  the  ser- 
vice usually  rendered  by  the  ignoble  stimulus  of  vanity, 
and,  at  the  same  time,  catch  fresh  inspiration  from  sym- 
pathy. There  is  something  impressive  in  the  fidelity  with 
which  famous  public  performers,  great  artists,  in  their 
several  departments,  keep  themselves  in  training.  What 
indefatigable  pains  they  take  to  prevent  any  falling  off  in 
their  skill  or  power !  With  unfaltering  devotion,  every 
day,  these  celebrated  favorites  privately  practise  their 
feats,  to  keep  every  sense  acute,  every  muscle  firm,  every 
faculty  equipped.  Most  obvious  and  keen  and  constant, 
though  somewhat  coarse  and  low,  is  the  motive  that  feeds 
their  purpose  and  keeps  their  efforts  from  flagging  j 


96  THE   MORALS   OF   SOLITUDE. 

namely,  the  lavish  returns  of  personal  admiration  and 
pecuniary  gain  to  be  secured  from  the  public.  The 
wearisome  preparatory  exercises  which  seem  so  heroic, 
are  less  impressive  when  we  see  that  they  are  sustained 
by  an  ever-present  anticipation  of  golden  guerdons  and 
intoxicating  applause  which  will  be  bestowed  on  them 
as  they  display  their  accomplishments  before  delighted 
crowds.  The  motive  itself — which  always  decides  moral 
rank  —  is  vulgar  enough  for  the  vile  to  feel ;  it  is  the 
power  and  tenacity  with  which  they  respond  to  the  mo- 
live  that  are  great  But  there  is  a  spectacle  of  devoted- 
ness  incomparably  grander  and  more  beautiful,  as  author- 
itative and  sublime  as  anything  known  on  this  earth.  It 
is  afforded  by  those  profound  thinkers,  exalted  believers, 
fervent  lovers,  who  never  make  an  exhibition,  never  re- 
ceive human  recognition,  but  toil  on  in  secrecy,  unno- 
ticed, unthought  of,  set  only  on  attaining  spiritual  per- 
fection. Winning  no  social  appreciation,  asking  none, 
without  even  a  friend  to  look  reverently  and  lovingly  in 
on  their  aims  and  struggles,  they  apply  themselves  in 
their  own  retreats  to  the  tasks  of  wisdom  and  piety. 
With  supernatural  courage  and  energy  they  toil  to  disen- 
tangle the  webs  of  sophistry  and  acquire  a  knowledge  of 
the  truth,  to  chasten  their  passions,  and  grow  pure  and 
magnanimous  and  gentle.  Though  their  hearts  are  pain- 
fully full  of  love  and  longing,  with  saintly  renunciation 
they  refuse  to  purchase  the  common  admiration  which 
they  could  easily  obtain  in  over-measure  if  they  would 
but  so  demean  themselves  as  to  stoop  for  it.  They  suffer 
no  day  to  go  by  without  strenuous  exercises  of  their 
highest  faculties  in  the  rarest  feats  of  human  nature,  tak- 
ing scrupulous  care  that  no  sweetness  of  tone,  no  preci- 
sion of  touch,  no  delicacy  of  motion  be  lost.  And  all 
this  they  do  without  one  public  plaudit,  without  one  sym- 
pathizing eye  to  see.  Here  is  pure  heroism  indeed.  It 
puts  all  other  bravery  to  shame.  The  proudest  boasts  of 
history  are  contemptible  before  it.  It  dwarfs  a  Caesar  in- 
to the  champion  of  a  village  brawl,  glorifies  a  Jesus  into 
the  hero  of  a  universe.  These  are  the  saints  in  the 
church  of  nature,  the  heroes  of  solitude,  the  chivalry  of 


THE   DANGERS   OF    SOLITUDE.  97 

mind,  the  elect  artists  on  whose  curtained  performance 
God  gazes,  an  invisible  Spectator,  distributing  his  ap- 
plause in  the  functions  of  their  characters. 

To  live  wholly  in  society,  or  wholly  in  solitude,  is  fatal 
to  the  best  prerogatives  of  the  soul.  To  be  healthy  and 
complete  we  must  live  alternately,  now  with  our  fellows 
and  the  world,  now  with  ourselves  and  the  universe. 
While  in  each  one  we  shall  gain  its  best  advantages  by 
making  the  most  of  its  distinctions  from  the  other,  ap- 
preciating the  contrast  as  vividly  as  possible.  It  is  an 
abuse  of  either  to  convey  the  unqualified  conditions  of 
the  other  into  it ;  in  company,  to  notice  no  one,  see  noth- 
ing, hear  nothing ;  alone,  to  be  occupied  with  social  van- 
ities and  heart-burnings.  When  among  men,  they  have 
claims  on  us,  and  we  have  no  right  to  be  self-absorbed  or 
absent-minded.  However  salutary  solitude  may  be,  it  is 
perverse  to  make  a  solitude  of  society.  Yet  this  state- 
ment is  susceptible  of  the  modification  happily  afforded 
in  a  paragraph  of  Schopenhauer,  which  as  strongly  re- 
bukes his  perverse  practice  as  it  exhibits  his  theoretic 
wisdom  :  —  "  Take  a  little  of  your  solitude  with  you  when 
you  visit  men.  Self-detached,  view  them  in  a  pure,  ob- 
jective light,  with  a  noble  freedom  from  prejudice.  Then 
society  is  a  fire  at  which  the  wise  man,  from  a  prudent 
distance,  warms  himself,  —  not  plunging  into  it  like  the 
fool  who,  after  getting  well  blistered,  rushes  into  the  cold- 
ness of  solitude  and  complains  that  the  fire  burns."  Mix- 
ture with  companions,  as  well  as  isolation  from  them, 
has  its  contributions  to  offer  towards  our  perfect  equip- 
ment. If  power  be  born  in  seclusion,  art  is  the  fruit 
of  association.  If  sentiment  be  nourished  apart  from 
men,  ambition  is  kindled  among  them.  If  principles 
grow  in  the  soil  of  solitude,  actions  ripen  in  the  air  of 
society.  He  who  abides  overmuch  by  himself  must  care- 
fully keep  an  open  communication  between  the  in  net 
meditations  and  plans  that  occupy  his  imagination  and 
the  social  motives  that  would  fertilize  and  apply  his 
energy.  Otherwise  he  is  likely  to  become  an  idle 
dreamer.  The  currents  of  his  enterprise  are  in  danger 
of  turning  awry  and  losing  the  name  of  action.  The 
5  a 


98  THE   MORALS   OF   SOLITUDE. 

ideas  of  deeds  become  the  substitutes  of  deeds  :  the 
mental  pictures  of  victories  prevent,  instead  of  prepaiing 
for,  actual  victories. 

Many  persons  who  keep  their  wits  awake  in  company 
let  them  lie  dormant  when  alone,  as  if  sharp  study  were 
useless  there.  But  observation  and  reflection  are  not 
more  necessary  in  society  than  they  are  in  solitude.  If 
seclusion  by  wisdom  is  divine,  seclusion  by  ignorance  is 
both  vulgar  and  dangerous.  Persons  of  a  rustic  and 
bashful  retiredness  are  at  the  mercy  of  all  sorts  of  impo- 
sitions, lures,  false  estimates.  They  are  often  overawed 
by  the  showy  and  wicked  initiates  of  the  world,  deferring 
to  them  with  such  fear  and  wonder  as  the  gorgeous-col- 
ored and  quiet  forest-birds  of  Brazil  might  feel  if  some 
wild  gray  ocean-fowl  flew  screaming  from  his  tempests 
through  their  solitudes.  While  the  heart  and  the  spirit 
stay  at  home,  therefore,  let  the  eye  and  the  mind  learn 
good  and  evil  by  travelling  much  abroad  beyond  the 
retreats  where  virtue  and  innocence  retire  to  nourish 
their  energies  and  to  protect  their  delicacy.  The  less 
we  mix  with  men  the  greater  our  weakness  and  unwis- 
dom, unless  we  fill  their  absence  with  something  better, 
—  grave  thoughts  and  earnest  feelings,  faith  and  study. 
Hermits  who  watch,  aspire,  and  philosophize,  become  the 
truest  sages.  Then  it  is  not  strange  — 

That  we,  in  the  dark  chamber  of  the  heart, 
Sitting  alone,  see  the  world  tabled  to  us. 
For  the  world  wonders  how  recluses  know 
So  much,  and  most  of  all,  how  we  know  them. 
It  is  they  who  paint  themselves  upon  our  hearts, 
In  their  own  lights  and  darknesses,  not  we. 

A  clear,  powerful,  assimilating  purpose  is  the  sole  ade- 
quate safeguard  against  the  exposure  of  those  who  are 
alone  to  idleness,  triviality,  dawdling  reverie.  Without 
this  purpose,  solitude  is  a  manufactory  of  vapid  vision- 
aries. It  is  absurd  to  dilate  on  the  advantages  of  soli- 
tude at  the  expense  of  the  advantages  of  society.  They 
aie  supplementary  rather  than  contradictory,  and  derive 
their  several  powers  from  their  mutual  contrast. 

Goethe  has  said :  "  Were  there  but  one  man  in  the 


THE   DANGERS   OF   SOLITUDE.  99 

world,  he  would  be  a  terror  to  himself."  Nay,  it  may  be 
added,  were  there  but  one  man  in  the  world,  there 
would  be  no  man  in  the  world.  In  the  absence  of  hu- 
manity  he  could  no  more  remain  man  than  there  could 
be  an  island  if  there  were  no  sea.  The  single  individual 
is  to  collective  humanity  as  the  little  column  of  mercury 
in  the  barometer  is  to  the  whole  atmosphere.  They 
balance  each  other  although  infinitely  incommensurate. 
A  quicksilver  sea,  two  and  a  half  feet  deep,  covering  the 
globe,  would  weigh  five  thousand  billion  tons.  That  is 
the  heft  of  the  air, — that  transparent  robe  of  blue  gauze 
which  outsags  the  Andes  and  the  Alps.  Its  pressure  is 
unfelt,  yet  if  that  pressure  were  annulled  all  the  water  on 
the  earth  would  immediately  fly  into  vapor.  Public  opin- 
ion is  the  atmosphere  of  society,  without  which  the  forces 
of  the  individual  would  collapse  and  all  the  institutions 
of  society  fly  into  atoms.  With  every  man  mankind,  or 
some  representative  of  it,  is  ideally  present  in  almost 
every  act  of  consciousness.  Often  the  most  important 
truths  are  the  ones  we  are  least  aware  of:  we  act  and 
react  on  them  automatically.  Scarcely  with  more  cer- 
tainty does  every  movement  of  a  private  lung  imply  the 
public  atmosphere  than  every  act  of  our  souls  presup- 
poses the  existence  of  our  fellow  beings.  As  Borne  said, 
"  Man  can  do  without  much,  but  not  without  men."  The 
self-esteem  of  the  anchorite  is  sustained  by  a  subtle  con- 
viction that  if  they  knew  it  men  would  admire  the  supe- 
riority that  enables  him  to  dispense  with  their  society. 
Saint  Antony  sought  out  Saint  Paul,  the  earliest  of  the  her- 
mits of  the  Thebais,  and  after  much  difficulty  succeeded 
in  gaining  admittance  to  his  cave.  The  first  question  of 
the  long-hidden  recluse  was,  "  How  fares  the  human 
race  ? " 

The  ideal  dependence  of  man  on  his  race,  even  in  the 
extremest  instances  of  withdrawal,  has  been  forcibly  ex- 
pressed by  Isaac  Taylor  in  his  masterly  treatise  on  Fanat- 
icism :  —  "  Nothing  appears  too  great,  sometimes,  to  be 
grasped  by  the  conceits  of  self-importance  ;  nothing  too 
big  for  the  stomach  of  vanity ;  and  yet  it  is  found  that 
the  imagination  refuses  to  yield  itself,  except  for  a  mo- 


100  THE   MORALS   OF   SOLITUDE. 

ment,  or  in  a  very  limited  degree,  to  those  excitements 
that  are  drawn  from  the  solitary  bosom  of  the  individual. 
Man,  much  as  he  may  boast  himself,  is  by  far  too  poor  at 
home  to  maintain  the  expense  of  his  own  splendid  con- 
ceptions of  personal  greatness.  Only  let  some  breath- 
less messenger  reach  the  cavern  of  the  hermit,  and  an- 
nounce to  him  that  his  love  of  solitude  was  at  length 
effectively  sealed  by  the  utter  extinction  of  the  human 
race,  —  solitude,  from  that  instant,  would  not  merely  lose 
its  fancied  charms,  but  would  become  terrible  and  insuf- 
ferable ;  and  this  man  of  seclusion,  starting  like  a  maniac 
from  his  wilderness,  would  run  round  the  world  in  search 
—  if  haply  it  might  be  —  of  some  straggling  survivors 
No  conception  much  more  appalling  can  be  entertained 
than  that  of  a  proud  demi-god,  who,  finding  within  his 
own  bosom  an  expanse  of  greatness  wherein  he  could 
take  ample  sweep,  and  incessantly  delight  himself,  should 
start  off  from  the  populous  universe,  and  dwell  content 
in  the  centre  of  an  eternal  solitude." 

With  the  ordinary  man  the  four  great  units  —  self, 
mankind,  the  material  universe  or  nature,  and  the  intel- 
lectual universe  or  God  —  are  obscurely  outlined,  con- 
fused, with  vague  and  feeble  reactions.  In  the  mind  of 
the  man  of  genius  these  four  units  are  sharply  defined 
from  each  other,  with  distinct  and  intense  reactions.  For 
health  and  peace  it  is  necessary  that  the  relations  of  these 
units  to  each  other  be  truly  apprehended  and  observed. 
Any  discord  or  insubordination  here  is  sure  to  breed 
morbidity  and  wretchedness. 

The  jarring  of  the  individual  with  the  whole  is  so  sad 
and  common  a  disease,  the  revulsion  from  the  world  into 
a  painful  and  angry  solitude  is  exhibited  in  the  experience 
of  so  many  superior  persons,  that  the  whole  subject  of  its 
causes,  bearings,  and  cure,  deserves  careful  consideration. 
The  more  so  as  the  disease  usually  passes  by  the  cold 
and  shallow  to  fasten  on  those  of  warm  hearts  and  rich 
minds.  The  greatest  number  of  isolated  and  resentful 
flingers  at  the  world  will  be  found  to  be  those  who  first 
went  out  to  the  world  with  the  most  impulsive  affection 
and  soaring  enthusiasm.  Disappointment,  disgust,  and 


THE   DANGERS   OF   SOLITUDE.  IOI 

pride  made  such  a  man  of  Hazlitt,  whose  quarrelsome 
humor  and  fierce  contempt  caused  most  of  his  acquaint- 
ances to  regard  him  as  a  mere  misanthrope,  but  of  whom 
Charles  Lamb  says,  —  "I  wish  he  would  not  quarrel  with 
the  world  at  the  rate  he  does ;  but,  judging  him  by  his 
conversation,  which  I  enjoyed  so  long,  and  relished  so 
deeply,  or  by  his  books,  in  those  places  where  no  cloud- 
ing passion  intervenes,  I  should  belie  my  own  conscience 
if  I  said  less  than  that  I  think  him  to  be,  in  his  natural 
and  healthy  state,  one  of  the  wisest  and  finest  spirits 
breathing ;  and  I  think  I  shall  go  to  my  grave  without 
finding,  or  expecting  to  find,  such  another  companion." 
The  founder  of  the  Christian  religion  propounds  as 
one  half  of  his  system  of  duty  the  commandment,  "Thou 
shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself."  Interpreting  these 
words  either  according  to  their  grammatical  and  logical 
force,  or  according  to  the  laws  of  a  scientific  morality, 
we  must  suppose  the  term  as  to  refer  to  kind  and  not  to  de7 
gree  :  thou  shalt  feel  towards  him  in  the  same  way,  though 
not  to  the  same  extent,  as  towards  thyself.  It  is  impos- 
sible for  each  man  to  love  all  men  with  the  same  inten- 
sity that  he  loves  himself,  though  he  may  love  them  in 
the  same  manner.  Besides,  were  it  possible  for  each 
one  to  love  his  fellows  in  exactly  the  same  degree  as  he 
loves  himself,  it  would  be  fatal.  The  divine  plan  of 
having  each  one  look  out  first  and  chiefly  for  himself,  is 
the  only  plan  that  could  work.  Each  one  has  the  most 
intimate  knowledge  of  his  own  wants,  is  best  fitted  to 
supply  and  defend  himself.  Give  to  every  one  an  inter- 
est in  the  welfare  of  all  others  as  keen  and  massive  as 
that  he  feels  in  his  own,  and  the  exactions  it  would  make 
on  him  would  exhaust  his  powers,  and  utterly  break  him 
down  in  futile  efforts  to  respond  to  their  claims.  Were 
philanthropy  universally  as  strong  as  self-love,  it  would 
be  necessary  to  legislate  against  it,  invoke  public  opinion 
against  it,  conventionally  enact  penalties  against  disinter- 
estedness, and  rewards  for  selfishness,  in  order  to  protect 
the  whole  of  society  by  the  preservation  of  the  separate 
individuals  who  compose  it.  Each  primarily  for  himself, 
secondarily  for  a,1!,  is  the  necessary  method  of  nature. 


102  THE   MORALS   OF   SOLITUDE. 

But  there  is  a  strong  tendency  in  man, —  a  tendency 
inherited  from  the  conditions  of  a  barbaric  past,  —  for 
the  individual,  instead  of  balancing  his  love  of  self  with 
a  love  for  others  as  much  greater  in  diffusion  as  it  is 
feebler  in  degree,  to  balance  it  with  a  general  hatred  for 
others,  as  hostile  rivals  striving  for  the  goods  he  wishes 
to  monopolize.  There  is  in  unregenerate  man  a  natural 
motion  to  regard  his  fellows  as  enemies  in  the  scramble 
for  the  fruitions  of  life ;  to  turn  from  them  with  aversion, 
and  wish  them  injury,  as  though  their  successes  were  so 
much  taken  from  him.  It  is  against  this  malign  tendency 
that  the  sublime  precept  of  Jesus  finds  its  application. 
It  is  the  duty  of  each  to  exercise  towards  his  fellow  men 
the  same  kind  of  feelings  which  he  directs  upon  himself. 
He  may  not  love,  forgive,  protect  them  as  much  as  he 
does  himself,  but  he  ought  to  as  sincerely.  Instead  of 
inverting  the  self-regarding  feelings  by  antipathy  into 
animosity  towards  others,  he  ought  by  sympathy  to  reflect 
those  feelings  over  them,  unaltered  in  kind  if  thinner  and 
paler  in  vigor. 

It  is  actually  impossible,  then,  and,  if  possible,  would 
be  ruinous,  for  us  to  feel  in  detail  the  same  degree  of  in- 
terest and  affection  for  the  bulk  of  mankind  that  we  do 
for  ourselves,  though  we  may  feel  towards  them  in  the 
same  mode ;  and  there  are  grand  generalities  of  human 
beings  or  human  interests  for  which  we  can  joyously  sac- 
rifice our  lives.  However  instinctive  it  may  be,  it  is 
wicked  to  have  one  set  of  feelings  for  ourselves,  and  an 
opposite  for  our  brethren.  This  is  the  fundamental  law 
of  morality,  and  with  its  fulfilment  are  bound  up  both  the 
happiness  of  the  individual  and  the  well-being  of  the 
whole.  The  violation  of  this  law  is  more  prolific  of  lone- 
liness and  misery  than  any  other  cause.  It  is  written  in 
one  of  the  ancient  sagas  of  the  North,  "  The  tree  which 
stands  within  the  village,  deprived  of  its  sheltering  fel- 
lows, droops  and  fades  away  ;  so  it  is  with  the  man  whom 
no  one  loves ;  why  should  he  live  long  ? " 

There  are  many  misanthropes  in  the  world,  made  such 
by  different  influences  ;  and  they  are  all,  so  far  forth,  iso- 
lated and  wretched.  Some  are  made  misanthropes,  sin- 


THE    DANGERS    OF    SOLITUDE.  103 

gular  as  it  may  seem,  by  too  much  tenderness  of  heart. 
Their  fine,  rich,  clinging,  modest  natures  want  more  sym- 
pathy than  the  coarse  and  careless  crowd  can  give  them. 
Sometimes  they  crave  appreciating  respect  and  kindness 
so  strongly,  and,  in  their  neglected  state,  feel  so  certain  of 
securing  what  they  desire,  if  they  can  only  gain  an  inter- 
ested attention,  that  they  importunately  display  to  chosen 
ones  their  treasures  and  claims  ;  as  much  as  to  say,  "  See 
here,  how  I  love  all  noble  things,  my  country,  my  kind, 
truth,  virtue,  beauty.  Deign  to  notice  the  proofs  of  a  mind 
not  poor  or  vulgar,  a  heart  soft  and  expansive.  Feel  to- 
wards me  as  I  deserve  and  want,  and  there  shall  be  no 
bounds  to  my  profiting  gratitude."  Every  generous  soul 
will  feel  more  disposed  to  pity  the  pain  that  underlies 
such  an  experience,  love  the  sympathy  that  so  needs  re- 
lief, and  admire  the  ingenuousness  that  dares  thus  unveil 
itself,  than  to  despise  it  as  vanity  or  hate  it  as  conceit. 
Yet  the  latter  is  the  more  common  treatment  it  receives. 
It  is  not  strange  that  many  a  grieved  spirit,  after  such  cruel 
misinterpretation,  retires  into  himself  apart  from  the  public 
course,  as  a  fawn  who,  venturing  near  a  nest  of  hornets, 
has  been  stung,  bounds  back  to  the  friendly  coverts  of 
lake  and  forest,  surprised,  terrified,  smarting.  It  is  but 
too  natural  that  he  should  then  feel,  as  Chateaubriand 
says,  "  Why  should  we  open  our  hearts  to  the  world  ?  It 
laughs  at  our  weaknesses  ;  it  does  not  believe  in  our  vir- 
tues ;  it  does  not  pity  our  sorrows."  Of  all  the  solitudes 
in  society  there  is  no  other  so  deep  and  fatal  as  the  soli- 
tude of  those  who  love  too  much  and  desire  too  much. 
The  occupants  of  that  solitude,  unless  their  tempers  have 
a  saintly  quality,  are  apt  to  be  exasperated  to  acrid  re- 
turns. Wordsworth  gives  a  forcible  description  of  such 
an  experience  in  the  case  of  one  who  owned  no  common 
soul  and  had  grown  up  in  lofty  hopes. 

He  to  the  world  went  forth, 
A  favored  being,  knowing  no  desire 
Which  genius  did  not  hallow  :  'gainst  the  taint 
Of  dissolute  tongues,  and  jealousy,  and  hate, 
And  scorn,  —  against  all  enemies  prepared, 
All  but  neglect.     The  world,  for  so  it  thought; 


IO4  THE   MORALS   OF   SOLITUDE. 

Owed  him  no  service ;  wherefore  he  at  once 
With  indignation  turned  himself  away, 
And  with  the  food  of  pride  sustained  his  soul 
In  solitude. 

The  one  eternal  want  of  man  is  to  feel  himself  reflected 
in  the  souls  of  his  brethren.  If  too  great  a  quantity  and 
too  high  a  quality  of  sensibility,  render  him  too  unlike  his 
neighbors,  his  desires  are  constantly  disappointed,  and  he 
is  in  danger  of  disliking  men,  because  they  hurt  him. 
The  following  lines  are  a  revelation  from  the  heart  of 
poor  Gerald  Griffin,  the  Irish  novelist.  The  lines  are 
obviously  morbidly  sentimental ;  but  in  their  genuineness 
they  are  touching  to  a  gentle  spirit,  who  will  respond  to 
them  with  grieving  sympathy,  and  deem  it  inhuman  to 
sneer  at  the  experience  they  express. 

I  would  I  were  the  lonely  breeze 
That  mourns  among  the  leafless  trees, 
That  I  might  sigh  from  morn  till  night 
O'er  vanished  peace  and  lost  delight 

I  would  I  were  the  murmuring  shower 
That  falls  in  spring  on  leaf  and  flower, 
That  I  might  weep  the  live-long  day 
For  erring  man  and  hope's  decay. 

It  is  impossible  that  such  a  spirit  should  be  otherwise 
than  solitary  amidst  the  hard  hearts  that  make  up  the 
majority  of  the  world.  He  says,  describing  the  life  he 
led,  "  I  used  not  to  see  a  face  that  I  knew,  and  after  writ- 
ing all  day,  when  I  walked  the  streets  in  the  evening,  it 
actually  seemed  to  me  as  if  I  were  of  a  different  species 
from  the  people  about  me." 

Men  of  this  temperament  are  easily  induced  to  with- 
draw from  social  scenes  in  grief  and  despair,  and  shut 
themselves  up  in  such  protecting  seclusions  as  they  can 
find  or  make.  An  extract  from  the  diary  of  John  Fos- 
ter—  who  certainly  was  no  weakling  —  betrays  such  an 
experience.  "I  can  never  become  deeply  important  to 
any  one ;  and  the  unsuccessful  effort  to  become  so  costs 
too  much  in  the  painful  sentiment  which  the  affections 
feel  when  they  return  mortified  from  the  fervent  attempt 
to  give  themselves  to  some  heart  which  would  welcome 


THE   DANGERS   OF   SOLITUDE.  IO^ 

them  with  a  pathetic  warmth.  My  heart  then  shuts  itself 
up  and  feels  a  painful  chill.  I  am  glad  to  be  gone  tc 
indulge  alone  my  musings  of  regret  and  insulation.'1 
Even  the  noble  Schiller  sank  for  a  time  into  a  state  of 
dislijdng  sourness  towards  his  kind.  "  I  had  clasped  ths 
world,"  he  says,  "with  the  most  glowing  emotions,  and 
found  a  lump  of  ice  in  my  embrace."  He  then  proposed 
to  translate  Shakespeare's  Timon,  affirming  that  no 
other  piece  spoke  so  eloquently  to  his  heart  or  taught 
him  so  much  of  the  science  of  life.  Bulwer  a  little  exag- 
geratedly remarks,  in  allusion  to  this  unhappy  passage  in 
the  life  of  Schiller,  "  It  is  a  state  common  to  all  good 
men  in  proportion  to  their  original  affection  for  their 
species.  No  man  ever  was,  in  reality,  a  misanthrope, 
but  from  too  high  an  opinion  of  mankind,  and  too  keen  a 
perception  of  ideal  virtue." 

The  touchstone  of  actual  intercourse,  too  often  and  rude- 
ly applied  to  natures  under  the  sway  of  their  own  ideal 
creations  and  demands,  is  cruel  in  its  effects.  Those 
whose  imaginative  sensitiveness  disqualifies  them  for 
comfort  in  the  cold  contact  of  reality,  may  sometimes 
wholesomely  retreat  from  an  intercourse  unsuited  for 
them  ;  but  they  must  take  especial  care  not  to  be  embit- 
tered so  as  to  regard  their  fellow  beings  with  contempt 
or  rancor.  That  would  only  aggravate  the  evil  they 
surfer.  Vain  and  foolish  is  it  likewise  to  utter  lamenta- 
tions or  blames  to  the  world.  Motenebbi,  the  great 
Arabic  poet,  says,  "  Complain  not  of  thy  woes  to  the 
public ;  they  will  no  more  pity  thee  than  birds  of  prey 
pity  the  wounded  deer."  There  is  but  one  medicinal 
refuge  for  him  who  flees  from  his  fellow  men  because 
they  wound  his  too  tender  heart ;  and  that  is  a  solitude 
in  which  he  can  brood  over  them  in  imaginative  sympa- 
thy. If  his  imagination  be  filled  with  scorn  and  hate, 
melancholy  and  dark  indeed  is  his  doom.  Goethe,  who 
seems  to  have  experienced  almost  everything,  has  de- 
picted this  loneliness  in  his  Harz  Journey  in  Winter. 
"But  who  is  this,  apart?  His  path  vanishes  in  the 
bushes,  the  twigs  close  behind  him,  the  grass  rises  again, 
the  desert  swallows  him.  Ah,  who  can  heal  the  pains  of 


106  THE   MORALS   OF   SOLITUDE. 

him  to  whom  balsam  has  become  poison  ?  who  out  of  the 
fulness  of  love  drinks  misanthropy  ?  First  despised,  now 
a  despiser,  he  secretly  devours  his  own  worth  in  discon- 
tented self-seeking." 

In  addition  to  those  who  have  become  misanthropic 
by  revulsion  from  a  world  wherein  their  affection  fails 
to  grasp  what  it  reaches  after,  there  is  a  class  of  a  darker 
and  intenser  type  composed  of  men  who  have  been  de- 
ceived and  abused  by  those  in  whom  they  trusted,  or 
persecuted  and  wronged  by  those  whose  favor  they 
sought.  Their  personal  experience  of.  the  tricks,  plots, 
and  cabals  of  mean  men,  of  the  slanders  and  hate  of  en- 
vious inferiors  and  malignant  rivals,  of  the  petty  stings 
of  critics,  has  disenchanted  them  of  their  early  illusions 
and  led  them  to  form  an  estimate  of  humanity  as  much  too 
base  as  their  original  estimate  was  too  exalted.  Timon 
is  the  representative  of  these ;  the  noble  Timon,  who 
"the  middle  of  humanity  never  knew,  but  both  ends," 
whose  final  relenting  before  the  good  Flavius,  showed 
that  his  nature,  "  sick  of  man's  unkindness,  was  yet 
hungry."  Sir  Samuel  Egerton  Brydges,  defeated  in  a 
suit  which  he  brought  for  a  noble  title,  —  a  claim  which 
all  but  himself  thought  purely  fanciful,  —  was  so  soured 
and  envenomed  by  a  perpetual  brooding  over  his  great 
wrong,  that  he  retreated  into  a  haughty  exile  and  solitude, 
and  became  almost  a  monomaniac  as  well  as  misan- 
thrope. This  is  to  make  the  mistake  of  confounding  the 
whole  species  with  the  worst  specimens  that  belong  to  it, 
instead  of  carefully  discriminating,  so  as  to  keep  our 
reverence  for  the  good  and  high  unharmed  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  low  and  contemptible.  Sometimes  one  who 
begins  with  hating  men  because  he  has  himself  been  dis- 
appointed and  ill-treated  by  them,  goes  on  to  hate  them 
because  he  believes  them  intrinsically  bad.  He  forms 
this  perverse  belief  by  putting  on  all  men  the  stamp  of 
the  bad  men  he  has  known.  He  should  reverse  the 
procedure.  The  ideal  type  of  the  race,  as  divinely  fair 
and  good,  affixed  even  to  individuals  who  injure  us, 
makes  it  possible  for  us  to  love  them.  But  an  ideal  type 
of  individuals,  as  foul  and  bad,  affixed  by  transference  to 


THE    DANGERS    OF    SOLITUDE.  1 07 

the  "race,  breeds  a  universal  disgust  and  rancor.  The 
data  for  forming  the  typical  idea  of  man  are  the  cardinal 
elements  of  our  nature,  the  great  principles  of  morality, 
the  choice  qualities  of  our  parents  and  friends,  the  chai- 
acters  of  the  illustrious  exemplars  in  history,  the  noblest 
representations  in  literature,  and  the  best  experiences  of 
our  own  hearts.  No  single  tyrannous  experience  or 
person  should  be  allowed  to  mould  it ;  and  all  malignant 
infiltrations  from  foes  or  from  our  own  depravity  should 
be  kept  out  of  it.  The  typical  idea  unconsciously  affixed 
to  individuals  or  the  race  is  what  principally  determines 
the  blessedness  or  the  misery  of  our  relations  with  our 
fellow  men.  Be  that  idea  exalted  to  its  best,  as  it  was  in 
Channing,  and  all  history  becomes  a  honey-pasturage  for 
our  thought.  Be  it  debased  to  its  worst,  as  it  was  in 
Schopenhauer,  and  the  whole  world  becomes  the  forage 
of  our  spleen. 

But,  however  natural  it  may  be  to  do  so,  there  is  no 
justification  for  those  who,  when  wronged,  turn  against 
mankind  with  retaliating  animosity.  They  are  guilty  of 
both  folly  and  sin  in  retorting  hate  on  the  level  of  those 
who  have  injured  them,  instead  of  rising  above  them  in 
serene  devotion  to  the  great  ends  of  existence,  —  truth, 
virtue,  faith,  God.  How  much  better  to  look  down  from 
this  height  on  the  ignoble,  with  a  divine  tenderness  of 
pity,  than  to  fall  in  rancorous  revengefulness  to  their 
range.  Every  truly  wise  and  good  man,  though  he  may 
sometimes  fail,  will  always  aim  at  this,  —  a  mood  of  bland 
and  magnanimous  benignity  towards  the  most  unculti- 
vated, the  most  degraded,  the  most  unjust  and  unkind. 
The  effort  will  often  try  him,  but  he  is  bound  to  perse- 
vere till  he  conquers  every  impulse  of  arrogance.  Sir 
Walter  Scott,  in  his  pecuniary  troubles,  faced  the  igno- 
rant and  cruel  rabble  at  the  court  house  of  Jedburgh,  held 
his  great  loving  heart  down,  and  calmly  braved  their 
hootings.  Agonized  by  this  outrageous  injustice  heaped 
on  his  misfortunes,  with  a  fore-feeling  of  his  doom  of 
mental  decay  and  speedy  death,  he  addressed  to  them, 
as  he  sadly  turned  away,  the  words  the  fallen  gladiator 
in  the  Coliseum  was  accustomed  to  address  to  Caesar,  — • 


108  THE   MORALS   OF   SOLITUDE. 

Moriturus  vos  saluto  I  Ah,  brave  Sir  Walter,  —  noble, 
tender  and  true,  even  in  response  to  the  heartless  injus- 
tice of  thine  inferiors ! 

It  is  beautiful  to  study  the  examples  set  by  many  great 
men,  of  magnanimous  forbearance  and  sweetness  in  the 
face  of  aggravated  wrongs.  Anaxagoras,  the  friend  of 
Euripides  and  Pericles,  by  his  bold  philosophical  teach- 
ings, offended  the  superstitious  crowd,  and  more  than 
once  came  near  being  condemned  to  death.  At  length 
he  was  exiled  to  Lampsacus.  When  some  one  there 
pitied  him  that  he  was  deprived  of  Athens,  he  proudly 
replied,  il  Rather  Athens  is  deprived  of  me."  The  citi- 
zens asking  him  on  his  death-bed  what  honors  they 
should  pay  to  his  memory,  he  said,  "Let  the  anniver- 
sary of  my  death  be  kept  as  a  holiday  by  the  school 
children."  And  it  was  so.  Phocion  bore  himself  with 
imposing  dignity  and  serenity  before  the  frenzied  mob, 
who  refused  to  grant  him  a  hearing,  and  clamored  for 
his  death.  Asked  what  message  he  would  like  carried 
to  his  son,  he  answered,  "  That  he  bear  no  grudge 
against  the  Athenians."  No  one  can  forget  how  Aris- 
tides  wrote  his  own  name  on  the  shell,  that  the  vulgar 
wretch  who  was  tired  of  hearing  him  called  the  just, 
might  vote  for  his  banishment.  When  Harvey's  book 
on  the  Circulation  of  the  Blood  came  out,  "  he  fell 
mightily  in  his  practice.  It  was  believed  by  the  vulgar 
that  he  was  crack-brained  ;  and  all  the  physicians  were 
against  him,  and  envied  him."  After  describing  how 
much  abuse  he  had  suffered,  Harvey  adds  :  — "  But  I 
think  it  a  thing  unworthy  of  a  philosopher  and  a  searcher 
of  the  truth  to  return  bad  words  for  bad  words ;  and  I 
think  I  shall  do  better  and  more  advised,  if,  with  the 
light  of  true  and  evident  observations,  I  shall  wipe  away 
those  symptoms  of  incivility." 

Another  class  of  misanthropes  is  made  up  of  persons 
naturally  of  a  savage  temper,  who  bitterly  envy  others 
their  advantages,  but  have  neither  sympathy  with  their 
feelings  nor  interest  in  their  pursuits ;  meagre  and  icy 
hearts,  born  under  the  Wormwood  Star.  Their  own  mean 
and  fierce  characters,  seen  in  themselves,  are  prevented 


THE   DANGERS   OF    SOLITUDE.  1 09 

by  self-love  from  appearing  detestable  ;  but  forming  out 
of  their  own  feelings  and  conduct  their  idea  of  other  men, 
they  recognize  its  detestableness,  as  seen  in  them,  and  are 
filled  with  hatred  of  it.  So  the  ugly  mastiff,  seeing  him- 
self in  a  mirror,  takes  the  reflection  for  another  dog,  and 
flies  at  him  in  a  rage.  Such  men  instinctively  hold  them- 
selves aloof  from  the  hearths  and  bosoms  of  their  kind, 
cynically  sneering  at  their  sentiments,  their  aims,  their 
doings,  their  joys  and  their  miseries.  This  is  the  surliest 
and  most  repulsive,  as  it  is  the  smallest,  class  of  men- 
haters.  Its  type  is  energetically  set  forth  by  Shakespeare 
in  Apemantus,  the  fierce  low  cur  who  was 

Set  so  only  to  himself, 

That  nothing  but  himself  which  looked  like  man, 
Was  friendly  with  him. 

The  doctrine  of  total  depravity,  as  held  by  Calvin,  legit- 
imately nourishes  a  terrible  misanthropy.  Any  one  who 
holds  this  theory  in  vital  consistency,  —  that  all  men  are 
naturally  utter  haters  of  good,  and  lovers  of  evil,  detest- 
ing God  and  detested  by  God, — must  become  a  virtual 
misanthrope,  and  desire  to  escape  from  the  scene  of  such 
a  demoniac  race.  Isaac  Taylor  has  shown,  in  his  pro- 
found and  terrible  analysis  of  fanaticism,  that  a  rancorous 
contempt  or  hatred  for  the  mass  of  mankind  is  the  appro- 
priate sentiment  of  him  who  regards  them  as  religiously 
cursed  and  abominable.  "  There  is  a  combination  of  the 
religious  sentiments  with  the  passionate  workings  of  self- 
love,  pride,  jealousy,  and  the  sense  of  personal  and  cor- 
porate welfare,  which  brings  with  it  the  most  peculiar  and 
virulent  species  of  misanthropy  known  to  the  human 
bosom  ;  and  an  arrogance  that  far  transcends  other  kinds 
of  aristocratic  pride.  With  an  anathematizing  Deity,  an 
anathematized  world,  and  himself  safe  in  the  heart  of  the 
only  Church,  the  zealot  wants  nothing  that  can  render 
him  malign  and  insolent." 

But  the  largest  class  of  misanthropes  consists  of  the 
lofty  men  who  are  repelled  and  angered  by  the  frivolity 
of  average  society.  Turning  from  their  own  schemes  of 
advancement  and  usefulness,  their  own  enthusiasm  and 


110  THE   MORALS   OF   SOLITUDE. 

industry,  to  the  pestering  jealousies,  littlenesses,  sloths  of 
the  multitude,  the  spectacle  fills  them  with  pity  and  scorn. 
Accordingly  a  marked  characteristic  of  most  of  the  great 
men  who  have  left  an  impression  of  themselves  in  litera- 
ture, or  whose  spiritual  portraits  have  been  truly  drawn 
for  us,  is  the  superb  feeling  they  have  had  of  their  own 
superiority  to  the  crowd.  Dante  said, 

To  their  babblings  leave 
The  crowd :  be  as  a  tower  that,  firmly  set, 
Shakes  not  its  top  for  any  blast  that  blows. 

Michael  Angelo  said,  "  111  hath  he  chosen  his  part  who 
seeks  to  please  the  worthless  world."  Milton  calls  the 
early  history  of  Britain  "a  mere  battle  of  kites  and  crows." 
Carlyle  entitles  the  population  of  Great  Britain  "  twenty- 
seven  millions,  mostly  fools";  characterizes  the  Americans, 
from  the  few  specimens  who  visited  him,  as  "  eighteen 
million  bores";  and  generally  speaks  of  all  great  masses 
of  men  in  a  tone  of  supreme  contempt.  Walter  Savage 
Landor  uses  a  host  of  similar  expressions,  and  adds  the 
original  remark,  —  which  well  shows  how  deeply  the  sore- 
ness had  penetrated  his  noble  mind,  —  that  "there  is  now 
no  great  man  in  existence."  Even  the  kindly  Emerson 
illustrates  the  temptation  of  the  great  to  scorn  the  com- 
monalty, when  he  speaks  of  "enormous  populations,  like 
moving  cheese,  —  the  more,  the  worse  "  ;  "  the  guano- 
races  of  mankind  "  ;  "  the  worst  of  charity  is,  that  the 
lives  you  are  asked  to  preserve  are  not  worth  preserv- 
ing " ;  "  masses  !  the  calamity  is  the  masses ;  I  do  not 
wish  any  shovel-handed,  narrow-brained,  gin-drinking  mass" 
at  all."  The  influence  of  such  phrases  is  unhappy.  They 
betray  in  their  use  an  absence  of  that  sympathy  which 
goes  downward  for  the  purpose  of  lifting  upward.  They 
betray  that  proud  aspiration  which  uses  the  thought  of  in- 
feriors as  a  footboard  wherefrom  to  bound  into  an  ag- 
gravation of  its  own  superiority.  How  much  better  the 
precept  of  Paul,  "  Honor  all  men  !  "  How  much  diviner 
the  sentiment  of  Channing,  "  I  recognize  God  even  in  the 
lowest  man  !  "  An  American  lecturer  is  reported  to  have 
said,  "  Ever}'  Irishman  who  lands  on  our  coast  is  a 


THE   DANGERS   OF   SOLITUDE.  Ill 

wheelbarrow-load  of  guano  for  a  Western  prairie."  The  ab- 
sence of  sympathy  in  such  an  utterance  is  shocking.  The 
body  of  the  daintiest  philosopher  is  certainly  fashioned 
of  the  same  substance,  and  destined  to  the  same  end,  as 
that  of  his  least  advanced  brother.  The  cultivated  thinker, 
from  his  height  of  scholarship  and  refinement,  has  no 
right  to  express  any  sentiment  towards  his  inferior  except 
sentiments  of  compassion  and  magnanimous  desire  to  ele- 
vate him.  To  fling  down  a  bolt  of  scorn  to  beat  him  yet 
lower  is  to  show  not  the  spirit  of  a  good  man.  Contempt 
for  the  plebeian  majority,  whom  Thiers  calls  "the  vile 
multitude,"  is  too  easy  and  common  in  aristocratic  minds, 
and  too  pernicious,  to  need  to  be  expressed  in  the  writ- 
ings of  men  of  genius. 

When  men  of  genius  have  been  poor  and  unappreci- 
ated in  their  time,  suspected  and  hunted  by  their  con- 
temporaries, this  feeling  has  often  easily  kindled  into 
flaming  dislike  or  curdled  into  acrid  disgust.  Then  the 
pride  which  underlies  the  genius  of  such  persons  leads 
them  to  seek  by  every  means  to  emphasize  their  unlike- 
ness  from  other  people,  —  to  intensify  their  abhorrence 
of  being  confounded  with  the  throng  they  consider  so 
despicable.  Whatever  exhibits  their  unlikeness  they 
prize  as  also  showing  their  superiority.  They  affect  to 
despise  what  others  admire,  and  to  admire  what  others 
despise.  Their  misanthropy  is  at  bottom  the  resent- 
ment of  wounded  pride  joined  with  injured  affection. 
If  it  were  pride  alone,  they  would  stay  indifferently 
among  men ;  but  the  hurt  affection  makes  them  flee 
into  solitude  to  hide  their  anguish  and  thicken  their 
armor.  Vanity  is  the  vice  of  the  social ;  but  pride  is 
the  vice  of  the  recluse,  and  is  by  much  the  less  amiable 
of  the  two.  In  the  man  of  vanity  the  idea  of  self  ex- 
pands or  contracts  according  to  its  fancied  dimensions 
in  the  opinion  of  others.  In  the  man  of  pride  the  idea 
of  self  grows  from  its  own  centre,  and  maintains  itself 
independently  of  the  opinion  of  others.  Vanity  acts 
piecemeal,  like  fancy  ;  pride,  in  the  mass,  like  imagina- 
tion. That  is  acute  and  fickle  ;  this,  chronic  and  weighty. 
The  wounds  of  mortified  vanity  are  easily  healed  ;  you 


112  THE   MORALS    OF   SOLITUDE. 

have  only  to  reflect  its  own  estimate  of  itself,  and  it  is 
soothed  and  pleased.  But  the  wounds  of  offended  pride 
are  almost  incurable.  The  reflection  of  it  in  any  less 
glory  than  it  is  accustomed  to  envelop  itself  in,  it  re- 
sents with  lasting  anger  as  an  insulting  and  deadly 
wrong.  Against  the  chilling  and  killing  effects  of  such 
a  demeaning  estimate  it  seeks  to  protect  itself  by  all  pos- 
sible arts.  Unhappily  the  most  easy  and  the  most 
effective  of  these  resources  is  to  aggrandize  itself  in  a 
palace  of  pride  reared  on  contempt  for  others.  The 
man  who  despises  all  his  race  as  selfish  and  sordid  must 
be  excessively  depraved  or  excessively  proud ;  for  he 
either  reflects  himself  over  them  or  contrasts  himself 
with  them.  It  is  really  curious  how  instinctively  the 
lonely  seek  to  solace  themselves  for  their  unlikeness  to 
the  crowd,  and  for  their  sorrowful  isolation,  with  consid- 
erations that  minister  to  their  pride.  Pope  adjures  some 
god  quickly  to  bear  him  to  solitude,  — 

Where  contemplation  prunes  her  ruffled  wings, 
And  the  freed  soul  looks  down  to  pity  kings  I 

They  are  fond  of  dwelling  on  such  aphorisms  as  "  the 
best  is  always  in  a  minority  of  one,"  —  each  latently  or 
patently  feeling  himself  to  be  that  one.  Thomas  Taylor, 
the  fanatically  solitary  platonist,  who  by  a  great  mistake 
was  born  in  the  Christian  era,  bitterly  denounces  "  the 
attempt  to  educate  the  vulgar,"  as  calculated  "  to  disor- 
ganize society  by  making  them  discontented  with  the 
servile  situations  for  which  they  are  meant."  Even  un- 
hurting  Coleridge  complacently  speaks  of  "  the  plebifica- 
tion  of  knowledge,"  and  says,  "  I  could  write  a  treatise 
in  praise  of  the  moral  elevation  of  Rabelais  that  woulJ 
make  the  Church  stare  and  the  Conventicle  groan." 

Men  of  the  greatest  powers  of  thought  and  feeling 
instinctively  insist  on  reality  and  justice,  and  are  dis- 
tressed at  every  violation  of  these  by  hypocrisy  and  pre- 
tence. They  must  have  men  and  things  judged  by  the 
intrinsic  standards  of  truth  and  right.  But  they  soon 
learn  that  in  ordinary  society  men  and  things  are  riot 
esteemed  for  what  they  are,  but  for  what  they  seem,  01 


THE    DANGERS   OF    SOLITUDE.  113 

are  reputed.  Appearance  and  interest  are  constantly 
put  above  desert.  The  current  test  is  not,  How  power- 
fully can  a  man  think  ?  how  purely  feel  ?  how  nobly  act  ? 
not,  What  is  he  in  himself?  but,  What  is  thought  of  him  ? 
what  is  his  position  ?  how  much  space  does  he  occupy  in 
the  public  eye?  They  are  pained  at  discovering  the 
worthlessness  of  the  thin  and  cold  regard  which  is  all 
that  most  men  at  the  best  will  give  them.  They  are 
grieved  to  find  how  mistaken  they  were  in  attributing  to 
the  crowd  the  same  reverential  and  glowing  affection 
which  they  themselves  feel  towards  the  illustrious  bene- 
factors of  the  world  ;  for  the  vulgar  take  delight  in  seeing 
that  the  feet  of  great  men  are  as  low  as  their  own,  rather 
than  in  seeing  that  their  heads  are  higher.  They  are 
shocked  to  perceive  the  common  insincerity  of  profes- 
sions of  attachment  in  social  circles,  the  private  hate  and 
indifference  often  really  existing  between  those  who  in 
public  appear  to  be  friends.  They  are  disgusted  with 
the  obsequiousness  and  servility  of  the  world  before 
success : — 

This  common  body, 
Like  a  vagabond  flag  upon  the  stream, 
Goes  to  and  back,  lackeying  the  varying  tide. 

No  wonder  the  chivalrous  Chateaubriand  was  sickened 
by  the  fulsome  time-servingness  of  the  successive  French 
gazettes,  when  Bonaparte  had  sailed  from  Elba  :  "  The 
monster  has  escaped  !  "  "  The  army  has  declared  for 
Napoleon !  "  "  The  Emperor  is  within  three  hours  of 
Paris  !  "  The  indignant  revulsion  of  a  noble  nature  from 
this  cringing  and  fawning  is  seen  in  the  anecdote  of  the 
high-souled  Persian  poet,  Saadi.  When  a  friend  had 
been  raised  to  office,  and  his  acquaintances  flocked  to 
felicitate  him,  Saadi  stayed  away,  saying,  "  I  shall  go  to 
see  him  when  his  office  expires ;  sure  then  to  go  alone." 
The  delicacy  of  sensibility  and  taste  belonging  to  gen- 
ius, the  range  through  which  its  powers  are  able  to  reach 
and  draw  inspiring  motives,  the  tenacity  of  its  sympa- 
thies and  purposes,  and  the  penetrating  earnestness  of 
its  demand  for  conduct  of  steady  sincerity  in  accordance 
with  the  facts, — all  four  of  these  qualities  set  its  pos- 


114  THE    MORALS    OF   SOLITUDE. 

sessors  in  distinction,  not  to  say  opposition,  to  the  crowd) 
who  are.  in  comparison,  insensible  in  their  nerves,  un- 
clean in  their  habits,  low  in  their  admirations  and  desires, 
frivolous  and  fickle  in  their  attachments,  conventional  in 
their  judgments,  and  servile  or  insolent  in  their  manners 
When  we  understand  the  nobleness  of  Tiberius  Grac- 
chus it  makes  our  hearts  bleed  to  see  him  left  to  be  mur- 
dered by  the  selfish  mob  in  the  Senate-house,  a  martyr 
for  the  oppressed  and  poor  among  his  countrymen.  Ju- 
venal, in  one  of  his  fearful  satires,  inveighs  against  the 
Roman  populace  for  the  shallow  ferocity  with  which  they 
turned  against  the  favorite  Sejanus  the  moment  his  im- 
perial master  darkened  on  him  :  — 

This  is  e'er  the  base  practice  pursued  by  the  throng  ; 
Men  who  ask  nothing,  heed  nothing,  seek  right  nor  wrong, 
But  impulsively  trample  the  man  who  is  down  ; 
'T  is  a  fool  who  would  value  their  smile  or  their  frown. 

Well  might  Petrarch  sigh  over  the  sign  made  by  his 
favorite  hero,  Scipio  Africanus,  when,  in  exile  at  Liternum, 
he  had  his  tomb  built  with  the  words  Ingrata  Patria  in- 
scribed on  its  front.  The  illustrious  patriots  of  Holland, 
the  noble  brothers  John  and  Cornelius  de  Witt,  after  all 
their  services,  dragged  out  and  massacred  in  the  streets, 
and  their  corpses,  in  a  state  of  horrible  mutilation,  sus- 
pended to  the  gallows,  are  a  cruel  example  of  the  blind 
brutality  of  the  populace.  A  thousand  powerful  expres- 
sions of  revulsion  from  the  reeking  vulgarities  of  the  mob, 
from  their  cruel  injustice,  from  their  unprincipled  fawn- 
ing, are  familiar  to  us  from  the  mouths  or  the  pens  of 
lofty  and  lonely  men,  who  have  now  sorrowfully,  now 
bitterly,  denounced  the  multitude  as  a  "many-headed 
monster,"  "  sweaty  citizens,"  "  base  and  greasy  crowd," 
whose  opinion  and  love  are  "  no  surer  than  is  the  coal 
of  fire  upon  the  ice,  or  hailstone  in  the  sun." 

Who  deserves  greatness 
Deserves  your  hate  ;  and  your  affections  are 
A  sick  man's  appetite,  who  desires  most  that 
Which  would  increase  his  evil.     He  that  depends 
Upon  your  favors  swims  with  fins  of  lead, 
And  hews  down  oaks  with  rushes.     Hang  ye  !  trust  ye? 
With  every  minute  you  do  change  a  mind, 
And  call  him  noble  that  was  now  your  hate, 
Him  vile  that  was  your  garland. 


THE   DANGERS    OF   SOLITUDE.  1 15 

Vulgar  natures  almost  invariably  affect  to  look  down 
on  their  superiors.  They  are  conscious  of  the  difference, 
and  interpret  the  difference  as  their  own  advantage.  The 
mechanical  holders  by  tradition  consider  the  prophetic 
masters  by  original  insight,  heretics  and  inferiors.  Dante 
was  accused  of  impiety,  because  he  broke  the  basin  in 
the  Florentine  Baptistery  to  save  a  child  who  had  fallen 
into  it  and  was  drowning ;  the  idolaters  of  the  letter 
thought  Lessing  an  infidel,  and  the  mummers  of  a  for- 
mula called  Spinoza  an  atheist. 

The  foolish  can  amuse  and  indirectly  instruct  the  wise : 
the  wise  are  irksome  to  the  foolish.  For  these  have 
only  their  own  faculties  and  attainments  wherewith  to 
measure  the  faculties  and  attainments  of  those ;  that 
which  transcends  or  baffles  their  comprehension  rebukes 
and  irritates  them,  hurts  their  self-love,  and  they  take 
vengeance  on  it  by  regarding  it  with  hate  and  affected 
contempt.  It  is  a  fearful  wrong,  a  sort  of  blasphemy  of 
the  Holy  Ghost ;  but  it  is  natural,  almost  inevitable. 
The  ducks  believe  the  swan  that  chances  among  them, 
an  uglier  duck.  Genius,  ridiculed  and  despised  by  un- 
feeling mediocrity,  if  too  modest,  sinks  in  shame  and 
agony ;  if  strong  enough,  supports  itself  by  a  rallying 
indignation.  Only  the  rarest  saintliness  can  enable  great 
men  to  see  themselves  thus  outrageously  misvalued  and 
scorned  by  little  men,  and  yet  preserve  a  sweet  serenity, 
rising  divinely  superior  to  any  heed  of  the  injury. 

We  have  seen,  then,  that  while  the  crowd  are  unrefined, 
superficial,  ignoble,  and  unstable,  the  man  of  sensitive 
genius  is  pure,  profound,  magnanimous,  and  wishes  to 
become  ever  more  divinely  rooted  and  constant  in  char- 
acter. As  he  mixes  with  the  crowd  he  is  exposed  to  a 
tendency  to  become  like  them,  —  to  be  frittered  and 
dragged  down  to  their  likeness  and  level.  He  knows 
that  no  one  ever  attained  to  supreme  excellence  in  any 
art  without,  in  the  phrase  of  Pope,  "an  inveterate  resolu- 
tion against  the  stream  of  mankind."  Therefore  he  has 
an  instinct  to  shrink  from  them,  to  guard  himself  from  all 
deteriorating  sympathies  with  them.  Thus  to  guard 
himself  from  their  degrading  influence  is  his  duty ;  but 


116  THE   MORALS   OF   SOLITUDE. 

in  doing  it,  it  is  both  his  highest  duty  and  interest  not  to 
hate  or  despise  them.  Their  nature,  as  exemplified  in 
its  best  specimens,  is  mysteriously  beautiful  and  great,  a 
divine  manifestation ;  and  his  own  destiny  is  ideally  bound 
up  with  theirs  beyond  the  possibility  of  a  real  separation. 
Therefore,  in  order  to  honor  their  Parent,  God,  in  order 
to  bless  and  help  them,  and  in  order  to  secure  his  own 
peace  and  health  of  mind,  the  exceptional  man  of  genius 
should  cherish  the  utmost  respect  and  kindness  for  the 
plebeian  mass  of  his  race,  a  patient  tolerance  born  of 
magnanimity,  and  a  placid  love  born  of  pity,  but  no 
egotistic  hate,  no  rancorous  scorn,  no  pharisaic  seclusion. 

To  fly  from,  need  not  be  to  hate,  mankind  : 
All  are  not  fit  with  them  to  stir  and  toil ; 
Nor  is  it  discontent  to  keep  the  mind 
Deep  in  its  fountain,  lest  it  overboil 
In  the  hot  throng,  where  we  become  the  spoil 
Of  our  infection. 

Nothing  can  be  more  unchristian,  to  a  thoughtful  mind 
more  inexcusable,  than  the  swollen  haughtiness  of  Corio- 
lanus  towards  the  crowd  of  his  fellow  citizens.  When 
they  banish  him  he  exclaims, 

You  common  cry  of  curs  !  whose  breath  I  hate 
As  reek  o'  the  rotten  fens,  whose  loves  I  prize 
As  the  dead  carcasses  of  uuburied  men 
That  do  corrupt  my  air,  I  banish  you. 

The  disposition  of  sympathy  indicated  in  these  words  is 
awful.  The  greatest  men,  who  have  sweet  and  gentle 
spirits,  will  shrink  with  horror  from  such  a  strain  of  turgid 
insolence.  There  is  a  true  and  beautiful  tone  in  the  sen- 
timent of  George  MacDonald  :  "Despise  a  man,  and  you 
become  of  the  kind  you  would  make  him  :  love  him,  and 
you  lift  him  into  yours."  Yet  the  chasm  that  yawns  be- 
tween the  extremes  of  human  character  and  attainment, 
or  even  between  the  best  specimens  and  average  speci- 
mens, cannot  be  denied.  Mrs.  Hemans  once  said, 
"Life  has  few  companions  for  the  delicate-minded."  Old 
Elwes,  on  hearing  an  unfortunate  man  ask  for  sympathy 
in  his  calamities,  turned  on  him  gruffly,  —  "  What  do  you 


THE   DANGERS   OF   SOLITUDE.  1 17 

\vant  sympachy  for  ?  I  never  want  anybody  to  sympathize 
with  me/"  The  distance  between  the  poetess  and  the 
miser  is  as  great  as  the  difference  between  a  bird  of  para- 
dise and  a  grizzly  bear. 

A  frequent  motive  for  retreating  from  miscellaneous 
society  is  to  escape  from  the  pain  of  conflict  or  partner- 
ship with  the  mob  of  backbiters  and  quarrellers.  Sir 
Walter  Scott  says,  "  It  requires  no  depth  of  philosophic 
reflection  to  perceive  that  the  petty  warfare  of  Pope  with 
the  dunces  of  his  period  could  not  have  been  carried  on 
without  his  suffering  the  most  acute  torture,  such  as  a 
man  must  endure  from  mosquitos,  by  whose  stings  he 
suffers  agony  although  he  can  crush  them  in  his  grasp  by 
myriads."  It  is  the  sorest  trial  of  the  man  of  a  great  and 
loving  spirit  to  be  forced  into  contention  with  envious  de- 
tractors. It  ought  not  to  surprise  us  that  he  sometimes 
impatiently  exclaims,  as  the  magnanimous  and  unworldly 
Shelley  exclaimed,  •'  How  can  I  run  the  gauntlet  further 
through  this  hellish  society  of  men  "  ;  that  he  sometimes 
cries,  as  the  tender  Tennyson  haughtily  cries, 

Be  mine  a  philosopher's  life  in  the  quiet  woodland  ways, 
Where  if  I  cannot  be  gay  let  a  passionless  peace  be  my  lot, 
Far  off  from  the  clamor  of  liars  belied  in  the  hubbub  of  lies  ; 
From  the  long-necked  geese  of  the  world  that  are  ever  hissing  dis- 
praise 

Because  their  natures  are  little,  and,  whether  he  heed  it  or  not, 
Where  each  man  walks  with  his  head  in  a  cloud  of  poisonous  flies. 

What  a  man  of  large  mind  and  liberal  temper,  who  is  im- 
partial in  thought  and  sentiment  towards  all,  has  to  suffer 
from  the  pestilential  littleness  of  partisans  and  bigots  is 
forcibly  described  in  the  following  extract  from  a  letter  by 
Robertson  of  Brighton,  in  which  he  refers  to  a  criticism 
on  himself. 

"  I  could  not  help  smiling  good-humoredly  at  the  writ- 
er's utter  misconception  of  my  aims,  views,  and  position. 
If  he  think  that  what  he  calls  a  philosophic  height  above 
contending  parties  is  a  position  which  any  man  can  select 
for  his  own  comfort  and  retirement,  he  miscalculates 
greatly.  If  he  suppose  that  the  desire  to  discern  the 
'soul  of  goodness  in  things  evil,'  to  recognize  the  truth 


Il8  THE   MORALS   OF   SOLITUDE. 

which  lies  at  the  root  of  error,  and  to  assimilate  the  good 
in  all  sects  and  all  men  rather  than  magnify  the  evil,  is  a 
plan  which  will  conciliate  the  regard  of  all,  secure  a  man's 
own  peace,  '  and  of  course  bring  with  it  great  popularity 
with  the  multitude/  I  can  earnestly  assure  the  writer  that, 
whenever  he  will  try  the  experiment,  he  will  find  out  his 
mistake.  He  will,  perhaps,  then  see  a  new  light  reflected 
upon  the  expression,  '  when  I  speak  of  peace,  they  make 
them  ready  for  the  battle.'  He  will  find  himself,  to  his 
painful  surprise,  charged  on  the  one  side,  for  his  earnest- 
ness, with  heresy,  and  on  the  other,  for  his  charity,  with 
latitudinarianism.  His  desire  to  exalt  the  spirit  will  be 
construed  into  irreverence  for  the  letter,  his  setting  light 
by  maxims  into  a  want  of  zeal  for  principles,  his  distinc- 
tion between  rules  and  spirit  into  lawlessness.  He  will 
find  his  attempt  to  love  men,  and  his  yearnings  for  their 
sympathy,  met  by  suspicions  of  his  motives  and  malig- 
nant slanders  upon  his  life  ;  his  passionate  desire  to  reach 
ideas  instead  of  words,  and  get  to  the  root  of  what  men 
mean,  he  will  find  treated,  even  by  those  who  think  that 
they  are  candid,  as  the  gratification  of  a  literary  taste  and 
the  affectation  of  a  philosophic  height  above  the  strife  of 
human  existence.  I  would  not  recommend  him  to  try 
that  '  philosophic  height,'  which  he  thinks  so  self-indul- 
gent, unless  he  has  the  hardihood  to  face  the  keenest 
winds  that  blow  over  all  lonely  places,  whether  lonely 
heights  or  lonely  flats.  If  he  can  steel  his  heart  against 
distrust  and  suspicion,  if  he  can  dare  to  be  pronounced 
dangerous  by  the  ignorant,  hinted  at  by  his  brethren  in 
public  and  warned  against  in  private  ;  if  he  can  resolve 
to  be  struck  on  every  side  and  not  strike  again,  giving  all 
quarter  and  asking  none ;  if  he  can  struggle  in  the  dark, 
with  the  prayer  for  light  of  Ajax  on  his  lips,  in  silence 
and  alone,  —  then  let  him  adopt  the  line  which  seems  so 
easy,  and  be  fair  and  generous  and  chivalrous  to  all 
But  if  he  expects  from  it,  '  of  course  considerable  self- 
applause  and  great  popularity  with  the  multitude,'  I  can 
tell  him  they  are  not  the  rewards  of  that  path.  Rather 
let  him  be  content  to  remain  a  partisan,  and  call  himself 
by  some  name.  Then  he  will  be  abused  by  many,  but 
his  party  will  defend  him." 


THE   DANGERS   OF   SOLITUDE.  1 19 

It  is  the  mark  of  a  generous  soul  ever  to  appreciate 
at  their  highest  value  the  merits  of  his  contemporaries, 
and  not  confine  his  admiration  to  those  departed  worthies 
with  reference  to  whom  rivalry  and  envy  are  impossible. 
The  shadows  of  the  old  patriarchs,  prophets,  and  law- 
givers —  Abraham,  Moses,  Zoroaster,  Menu  —  lie  so  vast 
and  long  across  the  generations,  not  because  they  were 
so  much  greater  than  we ;  but  because  they  lived  when 
the  sun  of  history  was  low  in  the  horizon.  And  with  re- 
gard to  them  we  have  every  motive  to  employ  the  aggran- 
dizing offices  of  the  imagination.  The  saintly  lover  of 
his  fellow  men  will  delight  to  dwell  admiringly  on  the 
gifts  and  graces  of  the  highest  spirits  he  knows,  because 
he  is  free  from  the  littlenesses  of  vanity  and  jealousy. 
In  the  peace  of  his  spirit,  remote  from  the  madding 
crowd  of  aspirants  who  rush  through  society  contending 
for  its  notice  and  prizes,  he  feels  like  one  who,  sheltered 
in  some  deep  forest,  listens  from  his  retreat  to  the  tre- 
mendous murmur  that  swells  and  rolls  alorig  the  tops  of 
the  trees.  He  avoids  every  thought  calculated  to  inflame 
vulgar  ambition,  cherishes  every  thought  adapted  to  soften, 
deepen,  and  strengthen  the  heart.  Burns  pausing  over 
the  daisy  he  had  ploughed  up,  is,  for  him,  a  finer  picture 
than  Alexander  conquering  Porus.  When  he  enters  into 
communion  with  the  mighty  spirits  of  the  past,  he  returns 
to  meet  his  neighbors,  not  with  flattered  pride,  but  in- 
spired with  charity ;  he  does  not  transfer  their  greatness 
to  himself,  but  to  his  race.  He  would  reject  as  a  false 
note  the  sentiment  expressed  by  Count  Oxenstiern  in  his 
pleasant  Essay  on  Solitude  :  —  "Occupied  with  the  great 
minds  of  antiquity,  we  are  no  longer  annoyed  by  contem- 
poraneous fools." 

There  has  scarcely  appeared  in  history  a  great  genius 
crowned  with  brilliant  triumphs,  who  has  not  been  pur- 
sued by  enemies  writhing  with  envy  and  hate,  envenomed 
at  being  thrown  into  obscurity  by  his  superiority.  Virgil 
had  his  Cornificius,  Fannius,  Bavius  and  Maevius,  the 
two  latter  of  whom  directed  their  spleen  also  against 
Horace.  The  wretched  cabals  and  quarrels  of  literary 
men  are  notorious  and  innumerable.  Bach,  Handel,  Mo- 


120  THE   MORALS   OF   SOLITUDE. 

zart,  Beethoven,  Weber,  Mendelssohn,  —  all  were  inex- 
pressibly disgusted  and  annoyed  by  the  hatreds,  plots, 
and  persecutions  of  rivals  and  inferiors.  The  same  has 
been  the  case  with  the  most  celebrated  actors  :  poorer 
actors,  fancying  themselves  robbed  by  these  of  the  ap- 
plause and  profit  they  deserved,  have  sought  to  detract 
from  their  talents  and  blast  their  laurels.  So,  too,  with 
the  great  statesmen,  —  they  have  been  forced  to  tread 
their  proud  course  amidst  the  sneers  and  slanders  of 
opponents.  In  every  age  envy  has  dogged  the  noblest 
foims  and  calumny  sat  on  the  sacredest  graves.  Noth- 
ing can  be  more  foreign  to  the  nature  of  great  genius 
than  such  conduct,  —  nothing  more  painful  than  the  ex- 
perience of  it  from  others.  Nothing  can  be  more  sure 
to  awaken  in  a  rich,  sensitive  breast  a  melancholy  feeling 
of  loneliness  in  the  crowd  and  estrangement  from  the 
world.  True  genius,  ever  incapable  of  this  base  bearing 
towards  its  brothers,  delights  to  pay  them  its  homage,  — 
finds  its  choicest  luxury  in  giving  them  encouragement 
and  love. 

When  Colbert  died  the  pension  of  Corneille  was 
stopped  by  Louis  the  Fourteenth.  Boileau  hastened  to 
the  king,  represented  that  Corneille  was  old,  poor,  sick, 
and  dying,  and  offered  to  resign  his  own  pension  in  his 
favor.  The  petty  Salieri  indeed  hated  Mozart,  but  the 
lofty  Haydn  adored  him.  Haydn  says  :  —  "  The  history 
of  great  genius  is  melancholy,  and  offers  posterity  but 
slight  encouragement  to  exertion ;  which  is  the  reason, 
alas !  that  many  promising  spirits  are  disheartened.  I 
feel  indignant  that  this  peerless  Mozart  is  not  yet  en- 
gaged at  some  imperial  court.  Forgive  me  if  I  stray 
from  the  subject,  but  I  love  the  man  too  much." 

If,  however,  most  men  of  great  genius  of  whom  we  know 
have  been  unhappy,  it  has  not  been  the  intrinsic  penalty 
of  their  genius,  but  a  consequence  of  the  exasperating 
meanness  of  competitors  and  the  indifference  of  the  un- 
appreciative  multitude.  The  panacea  for  their  wretch- 
edness is  to  seek  fulfilment  and  excellence  instead  of 
fame  and  applause.  It  is  not  aspiration  but  ambition 
that  is  the  mother  of  misery  in  man.  Aspiration  is  a 


THE   DANGERS   OF   SOLITUDE.  12 1 

pure  upward  desire  for  excellence,  without  side-referen- 
ces ;  ambition  is  an  inflamed  desire  to  surpass  others. 
Great  intellect,  imagination,  and  heart,  are  conditions  of 
noble  joy  and  content  when  free  from  that  extravagant 
desire  for  public  approbation  which  so  often  accompanies 
them.  The  spectacle  of  poor,  starved,  heart-broken  Chat- 
terton,  dead  in  the  London  garret,  —  his  legs  hanging 
over  the  side  of  the  bed,  bits  of  arsenic  in  his  teeth,  — 
is  not  the  proper  tragedy  of  genius,  but  of  a  morbid  hun- 
gering and  thirsting  for  social  recognition  and  honor. 
Let  genius  raise  itself  above  the  wild  chase  for  human 
praise,  content  itself  with  the  fruition  of  its  powers  and 
with  the  serving  of  men  by  the  fruits  of  its  powers,  and 
it  will  be  as  much  happier  than  mediocrity  as  it  is  more 
gifted.  In  one  of  his  creative  moods,  Carl  Maria  von 
Weber  said  :  —  "I  cannot  understand  my  happiness.  I 
seem  to  wander  in  a  dream  where  everything  is  flooded 
by  a  rosy  light ;  and  I  must  touch  myself  to  be  assured 
that  it  is  true."  "  I  seem  to  myself  to  enjoy  more  with 
my  eyes  in  one  glance  than  others  do  with  all  their 
limbs  in  all  their  lives."  That  is  a  true  trait  of  healthy 
genius.  But  how  terribly  it  is  often  perverted  into  sor 
row  and  agony  by  an  excessive  regard  for  admiration  and 
fame! 

That  keen-sighted  woman  of  the  world,  Miss  Mary 
Berry,  once  wrote  to  a  friend  :  "  I  am  much  more  dis- 
gusted in  society  by  the  little  impression  made  by  real 
merit  than  by  the  so  often  lamented  tolerance  of  vice." 
To  appreciate  general  superiority  of  intellect  and  excel- 
lence of  character  requires  some  nobleness  of  endow- 
ments and  of  aims  in  the  observers,  and  these  are  rare 
amidst  the  self-indulging  fickleness  and  frivolity  of  fash- 
ionable circles.  Therefore  high-minded  and  original 
characters,  who  cannot  stoop  to  use  dishonorable  arts  for 
self-advancement,  are  often  neglected  in  favor  of  those 
pushing  mediocrities  who  make  their  way  by  being  always 
in  the  way,  so  that  it  is  "  less  trouble  to  notice  them  than 
to  avoid  them."  Conformity,  obsequiousness,  especially 
inoffensiveness,  are  more  likely  than  power  and  deseit 
to  get  conventional  honors. 
6 


122  THE   MORALS    OF   SOLITUDE. 

The  grandest  writer  of  late  ages, 
Who  wrapt  up  Rome  in  golden  pages, 
Whom  scarcely  Livius  equalled,  Gibbon, 
Died  without  star  or  cross  or  ribbon. 

Jonathan  Edwards  never  had  the  degree  of  doctor  of 
divinity  or  of  doctor  of  laws  conferred  on  him,  while  they 
were  showered  on  scores  of  his  commonplace  contempo- 
raries. A  clear  perception  of  these  facts  should  comfort 
in  their  disappointment  the  deserving  who  are  wrongfully 
deprived  of  the  outer  prizes  of  their  deserts,  and  should 
make  them  content  to  forego  what  the  unprincipled  win 
from  the  conventional.  Shall  a  man  really  of  supreme 
mark  and  worth  fret  at  being  kept  from  the  titular  recog- 
nitions which  are  usually  given  to  factitious  claims  of 
name  and  position,  and  usually  withheld  from  men  of 
the  greatest  merit  if  they  be  unpopular  or  obscure  ? 

The  character  and  experience  of  men  depend  on  the 
inmost  modes  of  thought  and  feeling  they  cherish,  their 
favorite  objects  and  kinds  of  contemplation,  rather  than 
on  the  sociality  or  solitariness  of  their  outward  habits. 
Man  is  a  meditating  atom,  whose  happiness  or  misery  lies 
in  his  meditations.  The  cynic,  in  his  isolation  of  con- 
temptuous hate,  was  cold,  bitter,  repulsive,  and  wretched. 
The  stoic  was  capable  of  enthusiasm  ;  could  withdraw 
into  a  glowing  inner  life.  The  man  who  separates  him- 
self from  mankind  to  nourish  dislike  or  contempt  for 
them,  has  in  him  a  morbid  element  which  must  make 
woe.  True  content,  a  life  of  divine  delight,  cannot  be 
attained  through  a  sense  of  superiority  secured  by  thrust- 
ing others  down  ;  but  only  through  one  secured  by  lifting 
ourselves  up,  by  communing  with  the  great  principles  of 
morality,  contemplating  the  conditions  of  universal  good, 
laying  hold  of  the  will  of  God.  Whoso  would  climb 
over  a  staircase  of  subjected  men  into  a  lonely  happiness, 
will  find  it  misery  when  he  arrives.  To  be  really  happy 
one  must  love  and  wish  to  elevate  men,  not  despise  and 
wish  to  rule  them.  There  is  nothing  in  which  the  blind- 
ness and  deceit  of  self-love  is  more  deeply  revealed  than 
hi  the  supposition  with  which  misanthropic  recluses  fre- 
quently flatter  themselves,  of  their  complete  detaclunenl 


THE    DANGERS    OF   SOLITUDE.  123 

from  other  men,  their  lofty  freedom.  Spatial  separation 
is  not  spiritual  independence.  Of  all  men  the  man-hater 
is  the  one  who  is  fastened  to  his  fellow-men  by  the  closest 
and  the  most  degrading  bond.  Misanthropy,  as  a  domi 
nant  characteristic,  if  thoroughly  tracked  and  analyzed, 
will  be  found  almost  always  to  be  the  revenge  we  take 
on  mankind  for  fancied  wrongs  it  has  inflicted  on  us, 
especially  for  its  failure  to  appreciate  us  and  admire  us 
according  to  our  fancied  deserts.  The  powerful  and 
savagely  alienated  Arthur  Schopenhauer,  who  said  that, 
in  order  to  despise  men  as  they  deserved,  it  was  neces- 
sary not  to  hate  them,  was  embittered,  almost  infuriated, 
by  disappointment  in  not  obtaining  the  notice  he  thought 
he  merited.  He  came  daily  from  his  sullen  retreat  to 
dine  at  a  great  public  table  where  he  could  display  his 
extraordinary  conversational  powers.  He  eagerly  gath- 
ered every  scrap  of  praise  that  fell  from  the  press,  and 
fed  on  it  with  desperate  hunger.  He  sat  in  his  hotel  at 
Frankfort,  in  this  age  of  newspapers  and  telegraphs,  a 
sublimer  Diogenes,  the  whole  earth  his  tub.  An  apa- 
thetic carelessness  for  men  shows  that  we  really  despise 
them,  but  an  angry  and  restless  resentment  towards  them 
betrays  how  great  a  place  they  occupy  in  our  hearts. 
Diogenes  and  Alcibiades  were  equally  dependent  on  pub- 
lic attention  ;  the  one  to  feel  the  enjoyment  of  his  pride 
and  scorn  intensified  by  the  reaction  of  hate  and  admira- 
tion he  called  forth  ;  the  other  to  feel  the  similar  fruition 
of  his  vanity  and  sympathy.  Stylites  made  his  column  a 
theatre ;  Aurelius  made  his  throne  a  hermitage.  The 
greatest  egotists  are  the  most  fond  both  of  retirement  and 
publicity.  There  they  lave  their  wounds  with  the  ano- 
dyne of  self-love  ;  here  they  display  their  claims  to  admi- 
ration. The  truly  great  and  healthy  man  is  not  depend- 
ent on  either,  but  draws  blessings  out  of  both,  —  resolve, 
inspiration,  consecration,  sanity.  In  both  he  pleases  him- 
self by  improving  every  possibility  of  indulging  in  senti- 
ments of  respect  and  affection  towards  his  race. 

The  great  danger  of  the  couriers  of  solitude  is  the 
vice  of  pampering  a  conviction  and  feeling  of  their  own 
worth  by  dwelling  on  the  ignobleness  of  other  men 


124  THE    MORALS   OF    SOLITUDE. 

They  are  tempted  to  make  the  meanness  and  wretche'1- 
ness  of  the  world  foils  to  set  off  their  own  exceptional 
magnanimity.  They  need  especially  to  guard  themselves 
against  this  fallacy  by  laying  bare  to  their  own  eyes  the 
occult  operations  of  pride  and  vanity.  An  efficacious 
antidote  for  their  disease  is  a  clear  perception  of  the 
humbling  truth  of  the  case,  of  the  ignoble  cause  of  the 
disease.  For  it  is  unquestionably  true  that  the  man  who 
despises  the  world,  and  loathes  mankind,  is  usually  one 
who  cannot  enjoy  the  boons  of  the  world,  or  has  been 
disappointed  of  obtaining  from  his  fellows  the  love  and 
honor  he  coveted.  He  then  strives  to  console  himself 
for  the  prizes  he  cannot  pluck,  by  industriously  cultivat- 
ing the  idea  of  their  iontemptibleness.  Rousseau  de- 
manded more  from  men  than  they  could  give  him.  His 
brain  and  heart  were  pitched  too  high ;  with  the  fine  in- 
tensity of  their  tones  the  cold  and  coarse  souls  of  com- 
mon men  made  painful  discords.  Instead  of  wisely  seeing 
the  truth,  and  nobly  renouncing  his  excessive  exactions, 
he  turned  against  the  world  and  labored  with  misan- 
thropic materials  to  build  up  his  overweening  self-love. 
Of  course  he  was  not  conscious  of  this  himself.  It  was  a 
disease,  and,  fleeing  from  all  antidotes,  it  fed  in  solitude  ; 
whence  he  looked  abroad  and  fancied  that  he  saw  his 
contemporaries  leagued  in  a  great  plot  against  him.  Zim- 
mermann  and  Byron,  two  irascible  and  lonely  spirits  most 
fond  of  retirement,  noticed  the  danger  of  a  chill  shrivel- 
ling of  sympathy  in  a  too  isolated  life.  The  former  says, 
"  Solitude  must  render  the  heart  callous."  The  latter 
says  :  — 

In  solitude 
Small  power  the  nipped  affections  have  to  grow. 

Sir  Thomas  Browne  well  says  :  "  He  who  discommendeth 
others  obliquely  commendeth  himself."  What  is  the  in- 
evitable inference  as  to  that  man's  opinion  of  himself 
who  withdraws  from  other  men  because  they  are  unfit  for 
him  to  live  with  ?  Even  the  gentle  Shelley  says  to  his 
friend  Hunt,  "  What  motives  have  I  to  write  ?  I  had 
motives,  and  I  thank  the  God  of  my  heart  they  were 
totally  different  from  those  of  the  other  apes  of  humanity 


THE   DANGERS   OF   SOLITUDE.  125 

who  make  mouths  in  the  glass  of  time."  The  pride  of 
Byron  burned  with  a  darker  fire.  His  self-exaltation 
mounts  in  new  strength,  Antaeus-like,  with  every  reaction 
from  his  scorn  of  others.  He  describes  himself  as  — 

Not  to  desperation  driven 
Because  not  altogether  of  such  clay 
As  rots  into  the  souls  of  those  whom  I  survey. 

In  describing  the  ruined  castles  above  the  banks  of 
the  Rhine,  he  says  :  — 

And  there  they  stand  as  stands  a  lofty  mind, 
Worn,  but  unstooping  to  the  baser  crowd. 

Again,  after  speaking  of  his  passionate  love  of  n5tuie, 
he  adds  :  — 

Should  I  not  stem 

A  tide  of  suffering  rather  than  forego 
Such  feelings  for  the  hard  and  worldly  phlegm 
Of  those  whose  eyes  are  only  turned  below, 
Gazing  upon  the  ground,  with  thoughts  which  dare  not  glow  ? 

Rebelling  against  all  rule  or  influence  from  others,  insisting 
that  they  should  passively  accept  his  influence  and  rule, 
and  by  reflecting  confirm  his  estimate  of  himself,  when 
thwarted  in  these  chronic  and  deep-sunk  desires  he  grew 
desolately  proud  and  "forlornly  brave,"  determined  to 
keep  himself  at  his  vantage-height.  He  felt 

Himself  the  most  unfit 

Of  men  to  herd  with  man,  with  whom  he  held 
Little  in  common. 

He  once  refused  to  have  one  of  his  plays  put  on  the 
stage,  on  the  ground  that  its  success  would  give  him  no 
pleasure,  while  its  failure  would  give  him  great  pain.  In 
other  words,  he  would  not  own  that  the  approval  of  the 
public  could  flatter  him,  and  the  tacit  superiority  assumed 
by  critics  who  should  condemn,  was  insufferable  to  him. 
In  such  instances,  clearly,  solitude  is  not  courted  for  the 
purpose  of  noble  culture,  growth  in  true  wisdom  and 
virtue  ;  it  is  sought  for  self-protection  from  stings  and 
burdens,  for  self- fondling,  and  self-aggrandizement.  And 


126  THE   MORALS   OF   SOLITUDE. 

these  ends  are  pursued  by  the  recluse  at  the  expense 
of  his  species ;  the  lower  he  can  sink  them  in  his  esteem 
the  higher  he  rises  in  it  himself.  How  much  better  is 
Young's  maxim  :  "  No  man  can  think  too  lowly  of  him- 
self, or  too  highly  of  his  nature."  How  much  nobler  is 
Jowett's  sentiment :  "  Better  not  have  been  than  to  live 
in  doubt  and  alienation  from  mankind."  Thousands 
have  been  impelled  to  solitude  by  resentment,  —  as  the 
hermit  confessed  to  Imlac  he  was,  —  where  one  has  been 
led  to  it  by  devotion.  The  true  improvement  of  our 
lonely  hours  is  not  to  cherish  feelings  of  superiority  to 
our  neighbors,  but  to  make  us  really  superior  by  a  greater 
advancement  in  the  knowledge  of  truth,  the  practice  of 
virtue,  communion  with  the  grandeurs  of  nature,  and 
absorption  in  the  mysteries  of  God.  He  who  is  contin- 
ually exercising  scorn  towards  the  pleasures  of  society 
and  the  prizes  of  the  world,  is  one  who  has  failed  in  the 
experiment  of  life  and  been  soured  by  his  failure.  The 
truly  successful  man  appreciates  these  goods  at  their 
genuine  value,  —  sees  that  in  their  place  they  have  sweet- 
ness and  worth,  but  knows  that  there  are  other  prizes  of 
infinitely  higher  rank,  and  is  so  content  with  his  posses- 
sion and  pursuit  of  these  latter  as  to  have  no  inclination 
to  complain  of  the  deceitfulness  and  vileness  of  the  for- 
mer. To  dwell  alone  is  an  evil  when  we  use  our  solitude 
to  cherish  an  odious  idea  of  our  race,  and  a  disgust  for 
the  natural  attractions  of  life.  It  should  be  improved, 
not  negatively  for  dislike  and  alienation,  but  positively 
to  cultivate  a  more  earnest  love  for  higher  mental  pur- 
suits, choicer  spiritual  fruitions,  than  the  average  commu- 
nity about  us  are  wonted  to.  Scorn  for  man,  disgust  for 
the  world,  is  no  sign  of  strength,  loftiness,  or  victory,  but 
rather  a  sign  of  weakness,  defeat,  and  misery.  "  The 
great  error  of  Napoleon  was  a  continued  obtrusion  on 
mankind  of  his  want  of  all  community  of  feeling  for  or 
with  them."  He  deceived  himself  in  fancying  his  ruling 
feelings  unlike  in  kind  to  those  of  the  bulk  of  men ;  they 
were  the  same  in  sort,  only  superior  in  scale  and  tenaci- 
ty, and  in  the  greater  stage  on  which  they  were  displayed. 
He  showed  what  a  morbid  author  unjustly  characterizes 


THE   DANGERS    OF   SOLITUDE.  127 

as  "  that  just  habitual  scorn  which  could  contemn  men 
and  their  thoughts,"  because,  himself  vulgarly  selfish  and 
vain,  from  his  high  position  he  saw  the  unprincipled 
selfishness  and  vanities  of  other  men  unmasked  and 
writhing  in  virulent  struggles.  Let  him  whose  standard 
is  the  most  august,  whose  ideal  highest,  who  has  the  least 
number  to  sympathize  with  him,  endeavor  most  strenu- 
ously to  develop  a  genial  and  serene  spirit  of  good-will 
for  his  kind.  Let  him  use  imagination,  faith,  every  di- 
vine artifice,  to  dignify  and  adorn  man,  ever  looking  at 
him  through  fair  objects  and  great  truths,  and  communing 
with  him  by  their  help  ;  for  thus  alone, 

Is  founded  a  sure  safeguard  and  defence 
Against  the  weight  of  meanness,  selfish  cares, 
Coarse  manners,  vulgar  passions,  that  beat  in 
On  all  sides  from  the  ordinary  world 
In  which  we  traffic. 

The  true  protection  from  the  deteriorating  tendencies 
of  intercourse  with  persons  of  empty  minds,  shallow 
hearts,  and  idle  lives,  is  in  noble  and  strenuous  occupa- 
tion, and  in  friendship  with  the  truly  good  and  great. 
Priestley  says,  "  that  right  bent  and  firmness  of  mind 
which  the  world  would  warp  and  relax,  are  to  be  kept  up 
by  choice  company  and  fellowship."  Lamb  quotes  this 
in  a  letter  to  Coleridge,  and  adds  :  —  "I  love  to  write  to 
you.  I  take  a  pride  in  it.  It  makes  me  think  less 
meanly  of  myself.  It  makes  me  think  myself  not  totally 
disconnected  from  the  better  portion  of  mankind.  I 
know  I  am  too  dissatisfied  with  the  beings  around  me.  I 
know  I  am  noways  better  in  practice  than  my  neighbors, 
but  I  have  a  taste  for  religion,  an  occasional  earnest  aspi- 
ration after  perfection,  which  they  have  not.  We  gain 
nothing  by  being  with  such  as  ourselves.  We  encourage 
one  another  in  mediocrity.  I  am  always  longing  to  be 
with  men  more  excellent  than  myself." 

Zimmermann  says  :  — "  Our  whole  existence  is  occu- 
pied with  others;  one  half  of  it  we  spend  in  loving  them, 
the  other  half  in  slandering  them."  There  is  no  other 
problem  in  our  life  so  difficult  to  solve  as  the  problem  of 
our  relation  with  our  fellow  men  How  much  attention 


128  THE   MORALS   OF   SOLITUDE. 

and  feeling  shall  we  devote  to  them  ?  How  much  shall 
we  try  to  lead  an  independent  life  in  self  and  nature  ? 
Such  a  complicated  mass  of  considerations  enter  into  the 
subject  that  it  would  be  too  hard  a  task  to  answer  the 
question  in  detail.  But  the  best  conclusions  from  a  great 
deal  of  earnest  pondering  on  it  are  contained  in  the  fol- 
lowing general  precepts.  First,  let  him  who  seeks  to  be 
noble  in  character  and  blessed  in  experience,  raise  the 
interest,  respect,  and  love  he  gives  his  fellows,  to  the 
maximum.  Secondly,  let  him  reduce  his  hate,  scorn,  in- 
difference towards  them,  to  the  minimum.  Thirdly,  let 
him  strive  to  take  the  utmost  possible  pleasure  in  their 
virtues  and  joys,  and  in  their  esteem  and  kindness  for 
him.  Fourthly,  let  him  strive  to  feel  the  least  possible 
annoyance  from  their  neglect  of  him,  injustice  towards 
him,  or  insults  and  persecutions  of  him.  Fifthly,  let  him 
endeavor  to  do  practical  good  to  them,  and  keep  con- 
stantly in  mind,  as  the  sovereign  antidotes  to  misan- 
thropy, the  two  great  maxims  of  Platonic  ethics  :  No 
man  is  willingly  bad  ;  Virtue  may  be  taught.  And  finally, 
let  him  labor  above  all  to  possess  the  greatest  possible 
resources  of  dignity  and  happiness  in  himself,  nature,  and 
God,  unexposed  to  the  favor  or  frowns  of  capricious  man  ; 
for,  after  all,  the  essence  of  our  life,  and  by  far  the  greater 
part  of  its  separate  experiences,  are  alone,  —  incommuni- 
cably  alone.  Even  the  strong,  wise,  healthy,  many-sided, 
and  fortunately-situated  Goethe  makes  this  personal  con- 
fession :  — "  We  may  grow  up  under  the  protection  of 
parents  and  relatives,  —  we  may  lean  on  brothers  and 
sisters  and  friends,  —  be  supported  by  acquaintances,  — 
be  blessed  by  beloved  persons ;  yet,  in  the  end,  every 
man  is  always  flung  back  on  himself,  and  it  seems  as 
though  even  God  was  unable  to  respond  to  our  rever- 
ence, trust,  and  love  exactly  at  the  moment  of  our  need. 
While  quite  young  I  often  experienced  that  in  the  most 
critical  passages  the  cry  is,  '  physician,  heal  thyself ' ; 
and  how  many  times  I  was  forced  to  sigh  in  anguish,  *  I 
tread  the  wine-press  alone  ! '  When  I  looked  around  to 
make  myself  independent,  I  found  the  surest  basis  to  be 
my  creative  talent.  The  old  fable  became  liring  in  me 


THE   DANGERS   OF   SOLITUDE.  129 

of  Prometheus,  who,  separated  from  men  and  gods,  peo- 
pled a  world  from  his  own  workshop." 

It  is  an  abuse  of  solitude  to  carry  into  it  the  passions, 
cares,  frivolities,  and  hypocrisies  of  society.  Let  it  be 
pure  and  still  ;  a  cool  grotto  where  the  realities  of  nature 
and  God  may  woo  the  soul  away  from  the  hot  fen  of 
emulation  and  vice. 

But  unfortunately  it  is  not  always  to  be  kept  thus  clean 
and  silent.  Though  dedicated  to  sacred  presences  alone, 
the  annoyances  and  temptations  that  infest  artificial 
throngs  will  intrude.  The  influences  of  degradations  and 
crimes  will  come.  Every  soul  that  approaches  brings  its 
own  qualities  and  experiences,  as  well  as  its  own  capaci- 
ties and  aspirations  with  it.  One  especial  seduction  the 
solitary  should  beware  of,  the  tendency  to  a  luxurious 
melancholy,  self-fondling  sorrows.  "  Few  reach  middle 
age  without  receiving  wounds  which  never  heal.  We 
hide  these  wounds  when  we  can,  or  we  forget  them  in 
business,  perhaps  in  dissipation ;  but  they  remain  with 
us  still,  and  in  moments  of  solitude  and  depression  open 
to  pain  us."  It  is  one  of  the  subtlest  and  most  destruc- 
tive habits  in  which  those  fond  of  loneliness  are  tempted 
to  indulge,  to  reopen  their  old  wounds  in  secret,  and  feel 
again  their  bitter-sweet  pains.  We  should,  on  the  con- 
trary, dedicate  our  seasons  of  still  retreat  to  the  cultiva- 
tion of  health,  strength,  and  trusting  joy,  by  a  fresh  com- 
munion there  with  those  principles  of  truth,  those  objects 
of  beauty,  those  sources  of  affection,  which  most  elevate 
and  calm  the  soul. 

Furthermore,  a  predominant  solitariness  of  mood  and 
habit  has  evil  exposures  in  a  degree  peculiar  to  itself. 
The  man  of  overmuch  retirement  and  self-communion  is 
especially  beset  —  as  we  have  already  partially  seen  — 
by  egotism,  superstition,  morbid  views,  disregard  of  the 
real  interests  of  this  life,  and  sometimes  by  an  asserting 
rebound  of  the  sensual  nature  in  abnormal  power.  Wise 
and  saintly  Madame  Swetchine,  when  her  dear  friend, 
the  eloquent  Lacordaire,  had  announced  his  intention 
of  forsaking  the  world  and  burying  himself  for  a  long 
period  in  the  seclusion  of  a  convent,  adjured  him  not  ta 
6*  I 


130  THE   MORALS    OF    SOLITUDE. 

do  it,  warning  him  that  the  perfection  of  true  self-detach- 
ment would  be  more  impossible  of  achievement  there 
than  anywhere  else.  "  Solitude,"  she  writes,  "  may  be 
good  for  you,  useful,  perhaps  necessary, — solitude  with  its 
cortege  of  calmness,  liberty,  self-possession  ;  but  not  that 
isolation  which  in  removing  all  barriers  would  also  remove 
all  supports ;  would  force  you  to  lose  that  habit  of  contact 
with  men  which  is  so  precious  for  those  destined  to  live 
with  them  and  for  them  ;  and  would  deprive  your  imagi- 
nation both  of  the  admonitions  of  reason  and  those  of 
sympathy.  In  all  conditions,  in  all  regions,  the  divine 
word,  '  It  is  not  good  for  man  to  be  alone,'  finds  its 
application."  This  testimony  is  the  weightier  from  the 
profound  familiarity  of  its  writer  with  the  opposite  side 
of  the  truth.  For  she  has  said  elsewhere,  "  There  are 
times  in  life  when  we  have  a  true*  thirst  for  solitude. 
While  I  was  yet  very  young  my  instinct  wrote,  Solitude  is 
like  gold  ;  the  more  of  it  one  has,  the  more  one  desires." 
The  lonely  man,  if  full,  is  quite  likely  to  be  full  of  himself, 
and  to  look  on  others  with  scorn,  or  scornfully  overlook 
them.  Wrapt  in  his  own  idiosyncrasies,  out  of  connec 
tion  with  the  ordinary  characters,  views,  and  plans  of 
men,  the  aberrations  of  his  individuality  uncorrected  by 
their  averages,  by  the  common  sense  of  the  public,  he  is 
exposed  to  manifold  conceits  and  delusions,  of  which  he 
often  becomes  the  helpless  victim.  In  frequent  inter- 
course with  others  our  foibles  are  kept  in  check  by  theirs, 
the  tendency  of  self-esteem  to  a  crotchety  exaggeration 
of  insignificant  details  is  neutralized.  But  the  recluse  — • 
granting  him  life  and  spirit  enough  — ?  is  apt  to  indulge  in 
hyperbolical  estimates  of  trifles,  deeming  them  intrinsi- 
cally great  because  of  their  factitious  importance  in  rela- 
tion to  himself. 

And  now  behold  his  lofty  soul, 
That  whilom  flew  from  pole  to  pole, 
Settle  on  some  elaborate  flower, 
And,  like  a  bee,  the  sweets  devour; 
Now,  in  a  lily's  cup  enshrined, 
Forego  the  commerce  of  mankind. 

Deprived  of  really  great  concerns,  this  is  nature's  resource 


THE   DANGERS   OF    SOLITUDE.  13 1 

for  making  him  happy.  If  he  sees  a  humming-bird,  an 
animated  flame  of  colors,  dart  on  a  vine,  tear  open  the 
belly  of  a  grape,  quench  his  thirst,  and  fly  away,  his  bill 
stained  with  the  blood,  —  it  is  the  chief  event  of  the 
week.  If  he  wanders  in  the  forest,  far  from  all  civic 
racket,  he  pampers  his  self-importance  by  feeling  that  he 
is  "  Caesar  of  his  leafy  Rome."  To  unduly  magnify  and 
enjoy  the  common  little  things  near  at  hand  is  the  felici- 
tous illusion  of  superior  minds.  The  much  more  fre- 
quent habit  of  unduly  magnifying  and  pining  for  distant 
and  extraordinary  things  is  the  wretched  illusion  of  infe- 
rior minds.  The  greatest  and  wisest  minds  of  all,  free 
from  both  illusions,  see  everything  as  it  is,  value  it  at  its 
true  worth,  and  stand  firmly  poised  and  self-sufficing  in 
their  relations  with  the  whole. 

Peace  of  mind  is  the  great  prize  of  solitude ;  but  it 
may  be  lost  there  as  well  as  gained.  It  is  not  necessary 
for  us  to  be  with  other  persons  in,  order  to  have  inordi- 
nate desires,  hatreds,  envies,  and  a  rebellious  will,  nur- 
tured and  inflamed.  Wild  crotchets,  obstinacy,  besotted 
errors  and  prejudices,  cruelty,  revolting  sensuality,  have  too 
often  been  the  attributes  of  men  sheerly  separated  from 
the  bosoms  and  ways  of  their  fellow-creatures.  There 
are  anchorites  who  in  sourness  and  savageness  of  spirit 
may  match  any  specimen  from  the  market  or  the  stew. 

The  evil  influences  of  conventual  life  have  been  dis- 
cussed many  times  by  extravagant  partisans  on  both  sides. 
Perhaps  Zimmermann,  who  handles  the  subject  largely, 
has  held  the  balance  as  fairly  as  any  one.  The  abandon- 
ment of  the  world  for  the  recluse  life  of  the  various  orders 
of  monks  and  nuns  has  so  much  diminished  in  our  day,  — 
it  is  likely  to  be  practised  so  much  less  still  in  the  future, 
—  that  the  portrayal  of  its  evils  is  not  nearly  so  important 
as  formerly  anywhere  ;  in  a  Protestant  country  hardly 
necessary  at  all,  and  of  all  countries  in  the  world  perhaps 
the  least  needed  in  America.  All  that  is  requisite  to  be 
said  in  order  to  do  justice  to  the  subject  which  we  are 
treating,  may  be  stated  within  small  compass. 

First,  it  is  a  beautiful  thing  that  there  are  such  places 
as  the  Catholic  convents  and  monasteries,  where  persons, 


1 3  2  THE   MORALS   OF   SOLITUDE. 

unfitted  to  struggle  with  the  world,  may  retreat  from  its 
cruel  storms,  and  spend  their  lives  in  peace  and  devotion. 
There  are  those  of  exquisite  sentiments,  of  a  tremulous 
sensibility,  whose  feelings  have  been  torn  and  outraged, 
whose  worldly  affections  have  been  laid  waste  by  some 
tragic  experience.  To  face  and  buffet  the  cold  throngs, 
to  try  to  sustain  themselves  amidst  interests  and  passions 
so  alien  to  their  desires,  is  a  lacerating  conflict.  It  is  a 
blessed  thing  when  such  are  enabled  to  turn  away  from  a 
world  to  which  their  hearts  are  dead,  and,  retiring  within 
the  hallowed  shelter  of  the  cloister,  there  pass  the  residue 
of  their  days  in  pursuits  wholly  congenial  to  their  cruci- 
fied affections  and  their  immortal  hopes.  Altogether  be- 
nign and  beautiful  to  the  broken-hearted  martyrs  of  life, 
who  long  for  it,  is  the  solacing  employment  of  religious 
seclusion  in  that  divine  haven,  the  monastic  retreat  in  its 
best  forms.  When  we  think  of  the  heartlessness  of  most 
worldlings,  the  fearful  excitements,  the  jading  exhaus- 
tions, the  bitter  pangs  of  deception  and  failure,  known  by 
the  ambitious  and  sensitive  worshippers  of  wealth,  power, 
fashion,  and  pleasure,  —  we  cannot  wonder  that  the  utter 
exemption  from  all  such  trials,  and  the  noiseless  repose 
offered  in  a  religious  retreat,  should  often  exert  a  delicious 
spell  on  the  worn  and  weary  wanderers  who  approach 
it.  It  is  easy  to  enter  into  the  feelings  of  the  poet,  who 
left  these  words  written  on  the  wall  in  one  of  the  cells  of 
La  Trappe  :  "  Happy  solitude,  sole  beatitude,  how  sweet 
is  thy  charm  !  Of  all  the  pleasures  in  the  world,  the  pro- 
foundest  and  the  only  one  that  endures,  I  have  found 
here ! " 

A  strange  instance  of  abandonment  of  the  world  for  a 
solitary  life  is  given  in  the  history  of  Henry  Welby,  the 
Hermit  of  Grub  Street,  who  died  in  1636,  at  the  age  of 
eighty-four.  This  example  affords  an  eccentric  illustration 
of  one  of  those  phases  of  human  nature  out  of  which  the 
anchoretic  life  has  sprung.  When  forty  years  old  Welby 
was  assailed  in  a  moment  of  anger  by  a  younger  brother 
with  a  loaded  pistol.  It  flashed  in  the  pan.  "Thinking  of 
the  danger  he  had  escaped,  he  fell  into  many  deep  consid- 
erations, on  the  which  he  grounded  an  irrevocable  resolu- 


THE   DANGERS   OF    SOLITUDE.  133 

tion  to  live  alone."  He  had  wealth  and  position,  and  was 
of  a  social  temper ;  but  the  shock  he  had  undergone 
made  him  distrustful  and  meditative,  not  malignant  nor 
wretched,  and  engendered  in  him  a  purpose  of  surprising 
tenacity.  He  had  three  chambers,  one  within  another, 
prepared  for  his  solitude  :  the  first  for  his  diet,  the  second 
for  his  lodging,  the  third  for  his  study.  While  his  food 
was  set  on  the  table  by  one  of  his  servants,  he  retired 
into  his  sleeping-room ;  and,  while  his  bed  was  making, 
into  his  study ;  and  so  on,  until  all  was  clear.  "There  he 
set  up  his  rest,  and,  in  forty-four  years,  never  upon  any 
occasion  issued  out  of  those  chambers  till  he  was  borne 
thence  upon  men's  shoulders.  Neither,  in  all  that  time, 
did  any  human  being  —  save,  on  some  rare  necessity,  his 
ancient  maid-servant  —  look  upon  his  face."  Supplied 
with  the  best  new  books  in  various  languages,  he  devoted 
himself  unto  prayers  and  reading.  He  inquired  out  ob- 
jects of  charity  and  sent  them  relief.  He  would  spy  from 
his  chamber,  by  a  private  prospect  into  the  street,  any 
sick,  lame,  or  weak  passing  by,  and  send  comforts  and 
money  to  them.  "  His  hair,  by  reason  no  barber  came 
near  him  for  the  space  of  so  many  years,  was  so  much 
overgrown  at  the  time  of  his  death,  that  he  appeared 
rather  like  an  eremite  of  the  wilderness  than  an  inhabi- 
tant of  a  city."  The  hermit  crab  clings  not  more  obsti- 
nately to  his  rock  in  the  sunless  corner  of  some  ocean-dell 
than  this  crabbed  hermit  clung  to  his  seclusion  in  the 
roaring  centre  of  London.  Yet  he  hardly  deserves  to  be 
called  crabbed ;  since,  timidly  distrusting  men,  not  hating 
them,  he  seems  to  have  kept  his  goodness  alive  by  holy 
thoughts  and  kind  acts. 

Secondly ;  there  is  another  class,  besides  those  finding 
in  it  a  refuge  from  worldly  agony  and  despair,  to  whom 
life  in  the  conventual  solitude  may  be  wondrously  sweet ; 
namely,  those  who  have  genius  enough,  exalted  passion 
and  ideality  enough,  to  make  the  doctrines  of  their  creed 
vivid  realities,  —  the  fellowship  of  saints  and  angels,  the 
vision  of  heaven,  the  contact  of  God,  ever  present  to  them, 
—  their  rites  open  communications  with  the  supersensual 
sphere.  The  few  rich  and  ardent  souls  capable  of  this, 


134  THE   MORALS   OF   SOLITUDE. 

find  paradise  in  the  routine  of  their  ritual  and  the  silence 
of  their  cells.  The  experience  of  such  as  these,  recorded 
with  pens  of  fire  in  the  pages  of  a  Theodoret,  a  Palladius, 
a  Basil,  a  Francis,  a  Bernard,  —  compose  an  eloquence 
which  may  well  bewitch  and  electrify  tender  and  soaring 
souls.  To  such,  —  the  world  all  abjured,  the  fellowship 
of  mankind  quite  renounced,  the  tempest  of  sin  and  woe 
roaring  faintly  afar,  —  the  still  and  lonely  cloister,  with 
its  perpetual  train  of  celestial  recurrences,  may  minister 
health,  wisdom,  content,  rapture.  Happy  themselves, 
the  only  evil  is  that  the  use  of  their  powers  is  lost  to  the 
world. 

Thirdly  ;  but  when  instead  of  the  unhappy  or  the  un- 
worldly, voluntarily  seeking  refuge  in  this  heavenly  harbor, 
we  have  the  young  and  hopeful,  overpersuaded  or  forced 
into  this  dismal  banishment,  with  all  their  ungratified 
passions  throbbing,  —  when,  instead  of  the  imaginative, 
ardently  coveting  an  unbroken  communion  with  the  trans- 
cendent objects  of  their  beliefs,  we  have  the  dry  and  tor- 
pid, reduced  to  a  mechanical  repetition  of  forms  they  are 
incapable  of  animating,  —  then  the  nun  is  a  victim,  the 
monk  a  slave,  the  monastery  a  prison,  its  solitude  breed- 
ing diseases  and  miseries.  It  is  hard  to  imagine  any  con- 
dition more  unfavorable  to  true  dignity  and  happiness 
than  that  of  those  hopelessly  separated  from  the  world  by 
their  vows  and  their  jail,  yet  burningly  attached  to  it  by 
the  passions  that  glow  and  gnaw  beneath  the  placid  sur- 
face of  their  ceremonial  sanctity.  In  such  examples  the 
unemployed  and  dissatisfied  forces  of  the  soul  turn  in  to 
prey  on  themselves ;  and  engender,  in  some,  gross  physi- 
cal vices ;  in  others,  intense  spiritual  vices ;  in  all,  either 
an  irritable  unhappiness  or  a  deathly  stagnation.  The 
acrimonious  gossip,  jealous  spite,  fathomless  pride  and 
contempt,  which  may  be  fostered  under  such  circum- 
stances, are  fearfully  illustrated  by  Robert  Browning 
in  his  "  Soliloquy  of  the  Spanish  Cloister,"  and  by  Isaac 
Taylor  in  his  chapter  on  the  "  Fanaticism  of  the  Sym- 
bol "  ;  both  of  whom,  however,  fasten  on  rare  exceptions, 
and  with  a  dark  exaggeration. 

But  it  is  common  with  zealous  recluses  to  substitute 


THE   DANGERS   OF    SOLITUDE.  135 

foi  religion  superstition,  with  its  idle  solicitudes,  morbid 
scruples,  and  despotic  formalities.  Ever  since  the  system 
was  founded  some  proportion  of  the  recluses  have  un- 
questionably been  unhappy,  the  incurable  distress  of  their 
minds  raining  in  a  dreary  murmur  of  sighs  through  the 
confessional  grate.  Yet  the  number  of  the  unhappy, in- 
mates of  convents  is  much  less  than  Protestant  writers 
would  have  us  believe.  The  most  become  content  at 
least  with  the  second  life  of  habit.  Even  those  Carmel- 
ites who  rise  at  four,  sleep  in  their  coffins  upon  straw, 
every  morning  dig  a  shovel  of  earth  for  their  own  inter- 
ment, go  to  their  devotions  on  their  knees,  never  speak 
to  those  they  see,  nor  are  suffered  to  be  seen  by  those  to 
whom  they  speak,  and  taste  food  but  twice  a  day,  usu- 
ally get  so  attached  to  their  mode  of  life  as  not  to  be 
weaned  from  it.  In  the  French  Revolution,  when  the 
Convents  were  flung  open,  most  of  the  nuns  begged  to  be 
allowed  to  stay  and  die  there.  Judge  Story,  in  his  poem 
entitled  "The  Power  of  Solitude,"  has  described  the  scene. 

Hark,  from  yon  cloisters,  wrapt  in  gloom  profound, 
The  solemn  organ  peals  its  midnight  sound  ; 
With  holy  reverence  round  their  glimmering  shrine 
Press  the  meek  Nuns,  and  raise  the  prayer  divine  ; 
While,  pure  in  thought,  as  sweet  responses  rise, 
Each  grief  subsides,  each  wild  emotion  dies. 

Beckford  saw,  in  a  Carthusian  convent  in  Portugal,  a 
noble  and  interesting  young  man  who  had  just  taken  the 
vows,  and  who  seemed  very  sad.  "  I  could  not  help  ob- 
serving, as  the  evening  light  fell  on  the  arcades  of  the 
quadrangle,  how  many  setting  suns  he  was  likely  to  be- 
hold wasting  their  gleams  upon  those  walls,  and  what  a 
wearisome  succession  of  years  he  had  in  all  probability 
devoted  himself  to  consume  within  their  precincts.  The 
chill  gust  that  blew  from  an  arched  hall  where  the  fathers 
are  interred,  and  whose  pavement  returned  a  hollow 
sound  as  we  walked  over  it,  struck  my  companion  with 
horror."  The  same  writer,  however,  was  deeply  affected 
with  a  different  sentiment,  when,  at  the  close  of  a  visit 
to  the  monks  in  the  Grande  Chartreuse,  the  good  fathers 
accompanied  him  a  hundred  paces  from  their  building, 


136  THE   MORALS   OF    SOLITUDE. 

and,  amidst  the  frightful  scenery  of  the  place,  giving  him 
their  benedictions,  laid  their  hands  on  their  breasts,  and 
assured  him  that  if  ever  he  became  disgusted  with  the 
world,  here  was  an  asylum. 

Those  Hindu  fakirs,  who,  withdrawing  from  society,  sit 
in  one  posture,  year  after  year,  in  silence,  until  they  are 
paralyzed  into  immovable  stocks,  illustrate  a  fanatic  abuse 
of  solitude.  This  is  the  essential  error  and  evil  of  the 
monastic  system,  especially  in  its  logical  result,  as  seen  in 
such  orders  as  that  of  La  Trappe.  The  Trappist,  on 
entering  the  convent,  leaves  his  name  behind  him,  with 
every  other  earthly  clew,  digs  his  own  grave,  speaks  no 
more,  except  to  the  brethren  he  meets,  the  dismal  words, 
"  Remember  death !  "  —  admits  no  news  from  the  rejected 
world  outside.  The  Jesuit,  representative  of  one  pole  of 
the  monastic  spirit,  —  no  true  hermit,  but  the  votary  of  a 
grim  and  dread  ambition,  —  flees  from  the  world  only  to 
study  it  in  distant  detachment,  in  order  to  return  into  it 
as  a  conqueror  and  ruler  of  it.  The  Trappist,  repre- 
sentative of  the  other  pole,  a  preternatural  solitary,  de- 
testing beauty,  fearing  pleasure,  makes  an  ideal  of  de- 
spair, prefers  ignorance  to  knowledge,  indifference  to 
conquest,  and  buries  himself  in  an  anticipated  tomb. 
He  puts  death  in  the  place  of  life.  This  is  the  ascetic 
spirit  ultimated.  But  surely  God  has  placed  us  here  for 
the  purpose  of  living,  not  of  dying.  Dying  is  not  the 
whole  of  our  earthly  destiny,  but  its  act  of  completion 
and  transition.  The  monastic  regimen  was  born  in  death, 
flourishes  in  death,  culminates  in  death,  tests  the  value  of 
everything  by  the  standard  of  death.  Whereas  the  true 
standard,  while  we  live,  by  which  to  test  the  value  of  liv- 
ing interests,  is  the  standard  of  life.  True  religion  is  the 
vivification  of  the  soul,  as  extended  into  the  unknown  • 
the  religion  of  La  Trappe  is  the  mortification  of  the  soul 
as  spread  over  the  known. 

The- origin  of  the  Carthusian  order  was,  according  to 
the  record  in  the  "  Lives  of  the  Saints,"  on  this  miracu- 
lous wise.  A  dead  man,  who  had  enjoyed  the  highest 
esteem  among  those  who  knew  him  in  life,  while  borne 
to  burial,  lifted  his  ghastly  face  from  the  bier,  and  dis- 


THE   DANGERS   OF    SOLITUDE.  137 

tinctly  articulated,  "  I  am  summoned  to  trial ! "  After 
a  fearful  pause,  the  same  voice  said,  "  I  stand  before  the 
tribunal !  "  A  few  moments  of  horror  ensued,  when  this 
dreadful  sentence  issued  from  between  the  livid  lips  :  "  I 
am  condemned  by  the  just  judgment  of  God."  "  Alas," 
cried  Bruno,  who  was  one  of  the  train  of  mourners,  "  of 
what  avail  is  the  good  opinion  of  the  world  ?  To  whom 
but  to  Thee,  O  Lord,  shall  I  flee  ?  "  And  the  saint  de- 
parted, and  founded  that  Order  which  seeks  immortal 
life  by  cherishing  the  spirit  of  death  enshrined  in  a  form 
of  the  grave.  This  is  not  the  wisdom  and  health,  but  the 
fanaticism  and  disease,  of  solitude.  Better  handle  roses 
than  skulls,  contemplate  the  blue  freedom  of  the  sky 
than  the  dark  narrowness  of  a  cell,  think  and  feel  mod- 
erately, according  to  the  healthy  averages  of  nature  and 
life,  than  with  absorbing  extravagance  on  one  or  two  ex- 
citing points. 

To  sum  up  in  a  single  paragraph  this  estimate  of  the 
influences  of  monastic  retirement.  If  the  religious  vo 
tary  who  exchanges  the  world  for  a  cell,  despises  the 
world  with  a  too  intense  predominance,  he  inflames  an 
abnormal  pride  ;  and  a  life  fed  with  scorn  must  be  un- 
wholesome. If  he  seeks  to  subdue  the  world  to  his 
caste-interests,  like  a  Dunstan  or  a  Torquemada,  he  feeds 
an  ambition  less  human  and  worse  than  the  ambition  of 
martial  heroes,  —  the  Caesars  or  Napoleons ;  the  usual 
love  of  power  is  replaced  by  one  more  unnatural,  exas- 
perated, and  pitiless,  which  flatters  itself  with  a  heavenly 
elevation  while  drawing  its  nutriment  from  infernal  roots. 
If  he  sinks  into  a  mere  mechanical  formalist,  it  is  a  very 
low  and  poor  type  of  life,  no  better  than  if  in  the  routine 
of  society.  If  he  becomes  the  victim  of  suspicious  hates, 
wretched  spiritual  frictions,  or  of  brutal  appetites  of  car- 
nality, he  will  exemplify  the  most  degraded  and  aggra- 
vated, because  the  most  unrelieved,  forms  of  these  vices. 
But  if  his  earthly  affections  have  been  so  disappointed 
or  so  ravaged  as  to  make  a  lonesome  and  contemplative 
state  truly  soothing  and  medicinal,  or  if  he  has  a  pro- 
nounced genius  of  religious  enthusiasm,  the  cloistered 
solitude  may  be  his  truest  home. 


138  THE    MORALS    OP    SOLITUDE. 

When  one  avoids  his  fellow  beings  for  the  purpose  of 
escaping  the  pervasive  opposition  and  rebuke  their  pres- 
ence administers  to  his  egotistic  feelings,  every  step  of 
removal  is  an  injury.  Lowell  has  wisely  remarked  :  — 
"  One  is  far  enpugh  withdrawn  from  his  fellows  if  he 
keeps  himself  clear  of  their  weaknesses ;  he  is  not  so 
truly  withdrawn  as  exiled,  if  he  refuse  to  share  their 
strength."  Then  solitude  becomes  the  hot-house  of  vice. 
Vices  which  on  the  highway  were  shrubs  here  become 
trees,  and  even  exotics  are  curiously  pampered.  The  pe- 
culiarities of  any  caste  of  men  existing  in  marked  isola- 
tion from  neighboring  humanity,  are  apt  to  be  a  haughty 
selfishness  and  conceit.  They  acquire  the  habit  of  Phar- 
isaic exclusiveness,  and  hold  the  rights  of  mankind  in 
abeyance  to  the  interests  of  their  clique.  Thus  a  priest 
may  think  less  of  God  and  truth  than  of  the  ecclesias- 
tical establishment  with  which  he  identifies  himself.  The 
result,  of  course,  is  wholly  different  when  the  lonely  man 
spends  his  thoughts  and  passions  on  disinterested  prin- 
ciples and  plans,  themes  connected  with  universal  truth 
and  good.  The  history  of  monastic  ages  and  of  mysti- 
cal sects  is  certainly  as  full  of  warnings  as  of  examples. 
Their  prevailing  influence  is  to  withdraw  attention  from 
the  general  and  fasten  it  on  the  particular,  to  absorb  the 
individual  in  himself,  and  make  him  oblivious  of  the  pub- 
lic. They  forget  that  the  laws  which  bind  the  molecules 
into  wholes  have  a  sovereign  importance  immensely  be 
yond  the  molecules. 

But  our  chief  dangers  lie  in  the  opposite  quarter,  —  too 
much  living  in  a  throng,  frittering  publicity,  garrulous 
disclosures  and  uneasy  comparisons.  Our  pining  is  not 
after  loneliness,  but  after  the  rush  and  glitter  of  crowds. 
If  left  to  ourselves,  we  sigh  in  our  desertion,  and  think  it 
were  far  happier  to  be  in  the  throng.  But  why  do  we  not 
see  that  happiness  resides  in  the  mind,  and  is  no  gift  of 
place?  Diocletian  and  Amurath  voluntarily  abdicated 
their  thrones,  and  withdrew  into  private  life,  sick  of  the 
revolting  discoveries  they  had  made,  overwearied  by  the 
pompous  miseries  they  had  found.  Charles  the  Fifth 
exchanged  his  kingdom  for  a  cell,  and  deemed  himself 


THE   DANGERS   OF   SOLITUDE.  139 

the  gainer.  Philip  the  Third  on  his  death-bed  was  heard 
to  sigh,  "  O  that  I  had  never  reigned ;  that  I  had  rather 
been  the  poorest  man  ! "  Oliver  Cromwell  declared  in 
one  of  his  speeches,  "  I  can  say  in  the  presence  of  God, 
in  comparison  of  whom  we  are  but  like,  poor  creeping 
ants  upon  the  earth,  I  would  have  been  glad  to  have  lived 
under  my  wood-side,  to  have  kept  a  flock  of  sheep,  rather 
than  to  have  undertook  such  a  government  as  this."  Col- 
bert, the  great  minister  of  Louis  the  Fourteenth,  who  was 
proud  and  fond  of  his  master,  but  prouder  and  fonder 
of  his  country,  was  broken-hearted  by  the  alienation  of 
the  ungrateful  egotist  he  had  served  too  well,  and  at  the 
sight  of  the  distress  of  the  people  whom  he  had  toiled 
so  hard  to  shield  and  bless.  On  his  death-bed  he  refused 
to  hear  the  letter  his  penitent  master  sent.  "  I  wish  to 
hear  no  more  of  the  king.  It  is  to  the  King  of  kings 
that  I  have  now  to  answer.  Had  I  done  for  God  what  I 
have  done  for  this  man,  I  should  be  saved  ten  times 
over ;  and  now  I  know  not  what  will  become  of  me." 
Worst  injustice  of  all,  the  people  were  as  ungrateful  as 
the  king.  They  looked  on  Colbert  as  the  author  of  their 
hardships,  instead  of  recognizing  in  him  their  chief  friend 
and  benefactor.  The  great  minister  was  buried  secretly 
by  night,  for  fear  the  rabble  would  tear  his  body  from 
the  bier ! 

The  belief  that  the  men  of  the  greatest  celebrity  are 
the  happiest  men,  is  the  inveterate  fallacy  of  shallow 
minds.  The  reverse  rather  is  the  truth.  The  fate  of 
Caesar  is  a  symbol  of  the  fortune  of  genius ;  the  crown 
on  the  brow  implies  the  dagger  in  the  heart.  To  be  per- 
secuted with  dislike  makes  the  man  of  deep  sympathetic 
soul  unhappy.  And  certainly  this  is  the  common  fate  of 
the  great  man.  Envy  scowls  at  him,  and  hatred  reeks 
around  him.  His  illustrious  genius  rebukes  littleness, 
his  conspicuous  place  stirs  the  venom  of  obscure  am- 
bition, his  incorruptible  honesty  enrages  unprincipled 
selfishness,  —  and  they  seek  revenge.  Papinian,  the 
peerless  builder  of  the  Roman  Law,  who,  according  to 
Cujacius,  "was  the  first  of  all  lawyers  who  have  been  or 
are  to  be,  —  whom  no  one  ever  surpassed  in  legal  knowl- 


1^0  THE    MORALS   OF   SOLITUDE. 

edge,  and  no  one  ever  will  equal,"  became  unpopular, 
and  was  beheaded  by  Caracalla  for  his  ability  and  his 
integrity.  Looking  over  the  tragic  history  of  the  world 
thus  far,  it  is  obvious  that  greatness  and  happiness  have 
rarely  been  united.  "  Inquire,"  says  Lavater,  "  after 
the  sufferings  of  great  men,  and  you  will  learn  why  they 
are  great."  In  his  Dialogue  between  Nature  and  a  Soul, 
Leopardi  makes  the  soul  refuse  the  offer  of  the  highest 
gifts  of  genius,  on  account  of  the  inevitable  suffering  con- 
nected with  them.  Yet  it  will  ever  be  the  characteristic 
of  choice  souls  to  prefer  the  mournful  nobility  of  the  pre- 
rogatives of  genius,  with  all  their  accompanying  trials,  to 
jollity  and  mirth  on  a  more  vulgar  level.  In  their  view 
pleasure  may  be  a  rose,  but  wisdom  is  a  ruby.  With  a 
thrill  of  divine  valor  they  affirm  that  the  duty  to  be  noble 
takes  precedence  of  the  right  to  be  happy. 

Unquestionably  the  moral  regimen  of  the  hermitage  is 
more  appropriate  for  our  case  than  that  of  the  drawing- 
room.  The  frittering  multitude  of  interests  and  influ 
ences  is  so  great,  that  an  economizing  seclusion  and  de- 
fence of  the  soul  is  one  of  our  greatest  needs.  The 
truth  that  the  world  is  too  much  with  us,  is  fitter  to  fur- 
nish exhortations  to  us  than  the  other  truth,  that  it  is  not 
good  for  man  to  be  alone.  The  word  trivial,  in  its  ety- 
mological origin,  is  loaded  with  a  forcible  lesson.  It  is 
derived  from  the  word  trivium,  which  denotes  the  meet- 
ing-place of  three  roads ;  a  point  where  idlers  spent  their 
time,  loitering  to  see  what  passed,  and  to  discuss  the 
worthless  items  and  gossip  of  the  day.  How  much 
weightier  are  the  suggestions  of  the  word  solitude  ! 


The  Uses  of  Solitude. 

Two  men,  most  emphatically,  are  alone  ;  the  worst 
man  and  the  best.  Judas,  hugging  the  thirty  pieces  of  sil- 
ver, or  throwing  them  down  and  retiring  to  hang  himself, 
is  alone  ;  and  Jesus,  sitting  by  the  wayside  on  Jacob's 
well,  with  meat  to  eat  that  the  world  knows  not  of,  or 
going  apart  into  a  mountain  to  pray,  is  alone.  When- 


THE   USES   OF    SOLITUDE.  14! 

ever  we  feel  deserted  it  is  well  to  trace  the  cause  of  the 
feeling ;  learn  whether  the  experience  be  the  result  of  a 
fault,  of  a  merit,  or  of  some  neutral  quality  unfitting  us 
for  such  fellowship  as  would  otherwise  be  ours.  The  first 
improvement  of  our  loneliness  is  to  analyze  its  cause  and 
meaning,  —  see  what  kind  of  solitude  we  are  in,  and 
what  mode  of  treatment  will  be  best  adapted  to  the  case. 
These  preliminary  steps  taken,  the  next  duty  is  to  devise 
the  fittest  remedies  for  whatever  is  painful  or  wrong  in 
our  condition,  and  endeavor  to  win  the  richest  compensa- 
tions from  it.  A  very  different  regimen  should  be  pre- 
scribed for  one  suffering  in  the  solitude  of  guilt  from  that 
applied  to  one  suffering  in  the  solitude  of  grief.  The 
former  needs  the  processes  of  penitence,  atonement,  ref- 
ormation :  the  latter,  the  ministrations  of  faith,  love, 
cheerful  communion,  useful  activity.  Much  of  the  bit 
terest  loneliness  in  the  world  arises  from  an  exorbitant 
and  morbid  self-regard,  the  importunate  presence  of  self 
in  attention.  Hawthorne's  story  of  the  Bosom  Serpent 
is  a  terrible  illustration.  There  is  a  whole  class  of  soli- 
taries simply  from  shyness,  —  bashful  men  like  Gray  and 
Cowper,  the  poets,  and  Cavendish,  the  great  chemist. 
A  much  larger  class  affect  seclusion  in  consequence  of 
pride.  The  misfortune  of  both  these  classes  of  sensitive 
shrinkers  is  the  same,  an  inability  to  escape  the  conscious- 
ness of  their  own  personalities  as  related  to  the  opinions 
of  other  people.  It  is  not  mere  self-consciousness  that 
troubles  the  trembling  sensitive  ;  it  is  that  self-conscious- 
ness imaginatively  transferred  to  another,  and  exposed 
to  all  the  variations  of  the  supposititious  opinions  there. 
The  endless  multiplicity  of  competition  in  modern  society, 
at  every  point  a  prize,  at  every  point  a  glass,  —  tends  to 
force  us  inordinately  on  our  own  notice.  If  we  could  but 
gaze  at  the  prize  alone,  and  break  or  blink  the  glass  ! 
But  unfortunately  mirrors  prove  more  fascinating  than 
prizes,  and  most  persons  are  intent  on  —  themselves. 
No  other  article  of  domestic  furniture  has  been  so  dis- 
proportionately multiplied  in  modern  upholstery  as  the 
looking-glass.  Parlors,  dining-rooms,  entries,  dormitories, 
even  ladies'  fans  and  gentlemen's  hats,  are  lined  with 


142  THE   MORALS    OF   SOLITUDE. 

looking-glasses.  And,  not  content  with  this,  a  recent 
American  newspaper  contained  the  announcement,  in  a 
description  of  several  sumptuous  banquets,  that  the  host 
in  each  instance  furnished  a  photographic  likeness  of 
himself,  a  gift  placed  in  the  plate  of  every  guest.  The 
reporter  thinks  it  a  most  delicate  attention,  and  hopes 
that  the  generous  givers  of  dinner-parties  will  follow  the 
beautiful  example  and  make  it  a  custom !  Thackeray, 
with  probing  truth,  in  the  vignette  to  his  Vanity  Fair, 
depicts  the  representative  character,  stretched  at  full 
length,  neglecting  alike  the  petty  and  the  sublime  ob- 
jects about  him,  —  puppet,  crucifix,  church,  and  sky,  — 
with  a  melancholy  air  studying  his  own  lugubrious  face 
in  a  mirror  which  he  holds  in  his  hand.  Yes,  this  is  the 
malady  of  the  age,  —  an  age  of  Narcissuses.  The  cura- 
tive desideratum  is  devotion  to  a  divine  end,  disinterest- 
ed enthusiasm.  Give  the  victim  that,  and  he  will  fling 
off  his  incubus,  his  morbid  consciousness  of  self  will  dis- 
appear in  a  wholesome  consciousness  of  objects. 

Sometimes  the  unhappy  subject  of  this  malady,  at- 
tempting to  cure  himself  by  retreating  from  the  crowd 
where  his  self-consciousness  is  disagreeably  stimulated, 
only  aggravates  the  cause  in  solitude.  For  he  still  con- 
tinues to  deal  chiefly  with  his  own  personality  and  its 
private  affairs ;  and  he  who  does  this  will  find  that  ego- 
tism and  its  penalties  may  be  more  exasperated  in  the 
hermitage  than  in  the  hall.  He  must  put  self  in  the  back- 
ground, refuse  to  think  of  it,  escape  the  haunting  torment, 
by  an  absorbing  occupation  with  redemptive  objects  and 
truths.  Petrarch  —  one  of  the  most  eloquent  mission- 
aries of  solitude  —  has  described  this  untoward  experi- 
ence in  his  famous  sonnet  beginning,  "  O  cameretta  che 
gia  fosti  un  porto."  He  writes  :  — 

But  e'en  than  solitude  and  rest,  I  flee 

More  from  myself  and  melancholy  thought, 

In  whose  vain  quest  my  soul  has  heavenward  flown. 

The  crowd,  long  hostile,  hateful  unto  me, 

Strange  though  it  sound,  for  refuge  have  I  sought, — 

Such  fear  have  I  to  find  myself  alone. 

That  kind  of  moral  solitude  which  constitutes  a  pain- 


THE   USES   OF   SOLITUDE.  143 

tul  loneliness  does  not  consist  in  the  state  of  the  soul 
alone,  nor  in  its  circumstances  alone,  but  in  a  want  of 
adjustment  and  sympathy  between  the  soul  and  its  cir- 
cumstances. Pride,  chafing,  rebelling,  despairing,  makes 
loneliness  ;  aspiration,  beating,  self-sustained,  in  thin  air, 
wearied,  and  falling  back  on  itself,  makes  loneliness. 
Then  the  sufferer,  to  find  relief,  must  understand  what 
the  trouble  is,  and  set  himself  at  work  to  bring  the  dis- 
cord into  harmony.  If  his  outer  condition  is  right,  or 
unalterable,  he  will  subject  his  own  wishes  and  energies 
to  it ;  if  wrong,  strive  to  rectify  it.  If  some  of  his  facul 
ties  are  unduly  sensitive,  others  torpid,  he  will  seek  to 
restore  their  equilibrium.  If  he  has  fancied  non-existent 
circumstances,  and  of  existing  circumstances  magnified 
some,  depreciated  others,  and  been  blind  to  others,  he 
will  zealously  endeavor  to  correct  these  errors.  Thus 
will  peace  be  won,  and  the  blessed  fellowships  of  exist- 
ence be  re-enjoyed. 

In  addition  to  these  general  directions,  there  are  spe- 
cial resources  available  in  special  cases,  A  purpose  is 
always  a  companion.  An  earnest  purpose  is  the  closest 
of  companions.  To  fulfil  duties  is  more  than  to  enjoy 
pleasures  :  it  carries  its  own  reward. 

To  have  the  deep  poetic  heart 
Is  more  than  all  poetic  fame. 

There  is  no  bitter  loneliness  for  those  affectionately  de- 
voted to  blessing  their  fellow-creatures.  The  keeper  of 
the  light-house,  when  night  settles  around  him,  and  the 
tempest  holds  revelry,  as  he  looks  out  on  the  ghastly 
glare  of  the  breakers,  and  hears  the  shrieking  of  the 
storm-fiend,  finds  good  company  in  the  thought  that  the 
friendly  light  he  trims  will  warn  endangered  crews  of  their 
peril,  and  perhaps  save  them  from  death.  Gifted  souls 
find  solace  and  companionship  in  their  works.  It  has 
been  eloquently  said  of  Michael  Angelo,  that  he  was  "  a 
lofty,  lonely,  lordly  spirit,  but  gentle,  sensitive,  and  over- 
flowing with  sympathy,  who  moved  with  a  benignant 
complacency  among  the  great  forms  he  called  into  ex- 
istence for  his  own  satisfaction."  There  was  a  painful. 


144  THE    MORALS   OF    SOLITUDE. 

almost  tragic  solitude  in  the  life  Charlotte  Bronte  led  in 
the  bare  and  sombre  old  parsonage  of  Haworth  ;  the 
long  slopes  of  monotonous  hill  behind ;  and  before,  the 
dark,  dilapidated  church,  and  the  rude  burial-ground  with 
its  mute  hillocks  and  hollows,  its  tumbling  headstones, 
its  piteous  grass  and  desolate  paths.  The  great  event  of 
the  day  to  her  was  the  arrival  of  the  post ;  and  she  did 
not  dare  to  let  her  thoughts  dwell  on  this,  for  fear  it 
would  make  her  discontented  with  the  duties  of  the  other 
hours.  Yet  she  must  have  found  a  massive  comfort,  a 
keen  joy,  in  communing  with  her  own  genius,  and  in 
composing  those  powerful  books  which  she  flung  out 
upon  the  world  in  rapid  succession.  It  should,  further 
more,  always  be  remembered  that  sympathy  is  not  the  end 
of  our  life,  but  only  an  accompaniment  and  help.  The  true 
end  of  life  is  the  fruition  of  the  faculties  of  our  individual 
being. 

When  loneliness  of  life  is  caused  by  superiority  of  soul, 
its  compensations  furnish  the  proper  antidotes  for  its 
pangs ;  and  we  should  be  content  and  happy,  not  weakly 
submit  to  complain.  No  doubt  conceit  often  pleads  ef- 
fectively to  persuade  us  that  such  is  our  case  when  it  is 
not.  Many  a  self-deceived  weakling 

Has  stood  aloof  from  other  men 
In  impotence  of  fancied  power. 

We  must  beware  of  the  subtle  sophistry,  and  not  lay  the 
flattering  unction  where  it  does  not  belong.  On  the 
other  hand,  neither  modesty  nor  blindness  should  be  suf- 
fered to  hide  the  truth  when  it  is  really  favorable  to  a 
serious  complacency.  So  few  live  for  truth,  virtue,  pro- 
gress ;  so  many  live  for  routine,  amusement,  conformity, — 
that  it  is  not  astonishing  for  a  man  of  comprehensive 
lineal  activity  to  surpass  the  range  of  those  given  up  to 
a  careless  circular  activity.  A  passion  for  perfection  will 
make  its  subject  solitary  as  nothing  else  can.  At  every 
stop  he  leaves  a  group  behind.  And  when,  at  last,  he 
reaches  the  goal,  alas !  where  are  his  early  comrades  ? 
Let  him  thank  God  that  his  superiors  and  his  peers  are 
there  before  him.  Let  him  honor  these,  fraternize  with 
them,  and  be  blessed. 


THE   USES   OF   SOLITUDE.  145 

A  lost  faith  is  sometimes  the  cause  of  a  dismal  solitude 
of  soul.  A  sceptic  of  fine  sensibility,  robbed  of  long- 
cherished  beliefs,  and  provided  with  no  substitute,  miss- 
ing that  wonted  ministration,  may  feel  as  lonely  as  a  pil- 
grim overtaken  by  night  on  an  Alpine  ice-ocean,  —  a  dark 
speck  of  despair  between  the  shining  sea  of  ice  and  the 
colder  sea  of  stars,  a  conscious  interrogation-point  of  fate. 
His  true  course  is  to  face  his  doubts  without  flinching, 
boldly  follow  every  clew,  make  no  unfaithful  compromise, 
but  traverse  the  deserts  of  negation  to  their  end,  keeping 
a  spirit  open,  silent,  and  watchful  for  every  light  of  provi- 
dential direction  and  every  voice  of  divine  reality.  He 
will  then  find  denial  but  the  precursor  of  affirmation,  and 
disbelief  but  a  process  of  growth,  an  extrusion  of  dead 
husks  for  the  appearance  of  living  germs.  Dogmatic  as- 
sent will  be  superseded  by  spiritual  experience,  insight 
will  take  the  place  of  tradition,  and  blessed  truths  richly 
compensate  for  the  outgrown  formularies  which  it  cost 
him  so  much  pain  to  abandon.  His  trial  is  in  leaving 
the  injurious  but  endeared  companionship  of  beliefs  no 
longer  fitted  to  the  wants  of  his  mind,  but  which  he  has 
always  supposed  indispensable.  His  reward  will  be  to 
gain  a  new  companionship  of  higher  and  truer  views, 
better  beliefs,  more  accurately  adjusted  to  his  real  wants 
as  a  conscious  sojourner  in  time  and  a  responsible  pil- 
grim to  eternity. 

Who  ne'er  his  bread  in  sorrow  ate, 
Who  ne'er  the  mournful  midnight  hours, 
Weeping  upon  his  bed  hath  sate, 
He  knows  you  not,  ye  heavenly  powers. 

One  of  the  most  valuable  uses  of  solitude  is  to  prepare 
us  for  society.  He  who  studies,  when  alone,  to  under- 
stand himself,  and  to  improve  himself,  to  cure  his  vices, 
correct  his  errors,  calm  and  sweeten  his  heart,  enrich  his 
mind,  purify  and  expand  his  imagination  and  sympathy, 
thus  makes  seclusion  a  sanitarium,  gymnasium,  treasury, 
and  church,  and  takes  the  surest  means  to  commend  him 
self  to  his  fellow-men.  He  employs  the  best  method  both 
for  giving  and  securing  pleasure  when  he  shall  return 
from  his  retirement  to  mingle  with  others  again.  Ma- 
7  J 


146  THE   MORALS   OF   SOLITUDE 

dame  Swetchine  says,  "  I  hold  it  a  good  thing  to  forsake 
the  world  from  time  to  time,  so  as  not  to  lose  the  relish 
for  it ;  as  Rousseau  liked  to  leave  those  whom  he  loved, 
in  order  to  have  the  pleasure  of  writing  to  them."  Those 
who  nurture  any  of  the  malign  or  unsocial  sentiments 
when  by  themselves,  become  unfit  for  company ;  all  fre- 
quented haunts  grow  distasteful  to  them  ;  they  become 
jealous,  irritable,  and  wretched  everywhere.  Advantage 
should  rather  be  taken  of  solitude  to  assuage  every  rank- 
ling remembrance,  all  selfish  suspicions,  to  lay  emollients 
on  the  wounds  of  vanity,  to  foster  generous  views  of  our 
fellow-beings,  and  strengthen  the  benignant  feelings. 
Then  we  shall  leave  our  retreat  and  re-enter  the  throng, 
refreshed  and  placid,  prepared  doubly  to  enjoy  the  privi 
leges  of  human  intercourse.  Thus  every  recurrence  of 
loneliness,  instead  of  tending  to  make  us  misanthropic, 
will  send  us  back  to  our  common  avocations  and  plea- 
sures with  a  wiser  interest,  a  keener  relish  for  all  that 
concerns  our  kind.  Charles  Lamb  charmingly  describes 
such  an  experience  in  his  little  poem  on  the  Sabbath 
Bells.  A  solitary  thinker  is  roaming  the  hills  far  from  the 
walks  of  men,  wrapt  in  abstruse  contemplations,  debat 
ing  with  himself  hard  and  elusive  questions. 

Thought-sick  and  tired 
Of  controversy  where  no  end  appears, 
No  clew  to  his  research,  the  lonely  man 
Half  wishes  for  society  again. 
Him,  thus  engaged,  the  sabbath  bells  salute 
Sudden.    His  heart  awakes,  his  ears  drink  in 
The  cheering  music  :  his  relenting  soul 
Yearns  after  all  the  joys  of  social  life, 
And  softens  with  the  love  of  human  kind. 

Such  an  improvement  of  seclusion  is  the  way  to  make 
us  attractive  to  others  as  well  as  contented  in  ourselves. 
To  be  ignorant  of  yourself,  uneasy  and  exacting,  is  to  be 
repulsive  no  less  than  miserable.  Who  would  enjoy  the 
world,  must  move  through  it  detached  from  it,  coming 
into  it  from  a  superior  position.  He  must  not  be  weakly 
dependent  on  his  fellows,  but  say  to  himself,  Cannot 
God,  the  Universe  and  I,  make  my  life  a  rich,  self-suffic- 
ing thing  here  in  time  ?  To  command  love  we  must  not 


THE   USES   OF   SOLITUDE.  1^)7 

be  dependent  on  it ;  a  tragical  truth  for  those  who  have 
most  need  of  love.  The  way  to  self-sufficingness  is  the 
way  to  public  conquest.  Happy  in  the  closet  is  winsome 
in  the  crowd.  The  king  of  solitude  is  also  the  king  of 
society.  The  reverse,  however,  is  not  so  true.  Many  an 
applauded  domineerer  of  the  forum,  many  a  brilliant  en- 
chantress of  the  assembly,  when  alone,  is  gnawed  by  in- 
satiable passions,  groans  restlessly  under  the  recoil  of 
disappointment.  William  von  Humboldt  wrote  to  his 
friend  Charlotte,  "There  are  few  who  understand  the 
value  of  solitude,  and  how  many  advantages  it  offers, 
especially  to  women,  who  are  more  apt  than  men  to  wreck 
themselves  on  petty  disquietudes."  Self-inspection,  self- 
purification,  self-subdual  to  the  conditions  of  noble  being 
and  experience,  —  these  form  the  fitting  occupation  of  our 
solitary  hours.  Yet,  self  must  not  be  the  conspicuous  ob- 
ject of  our  contemplation,  but  great  truths  and  senti- 
ments, moral  and  religious  principles,  nature,  humanity, 
and  God,  the  perennial  fountains  of  fresh  and  pure  life. 
He  who  follows  this  course  is  best  qualified  to  read  and 
interpret  the  secrets  of  other  souls.  He  is  likewise  best 
fitted  to  master  the  world,  in  the  only  sense  in  which  a 
good  man  will  wish  to  master  it.  There  is  no  more  effi- 
cacious mode  of  observing  mankind,  than  as  they  are  seen 
from  the  loop-holes  of  retreat,  and  mirrored  in  our  own 
consciousness.  In  relation  to  what  is  deep  and  holy,  as 
compared  with  each  other,  society  is  a  concealer,  solitude 
a  revealer :  much,  hidden  from  us  in  that,  is  shown  to  us 
in  this.  Amidst  a  festival  the  moonlight  streams  on  the 
wall ;  but  it  is  unnoticed  while  the  lamps  blaze,  and  the 
guests  crowd  and  chatter.  But  when  the  gossipers  go, 
and  the  lights  are  put  out,  then,  unveiled  of  the  glare  and 
noise,  that  silvery  illumination  from  heaven  grows  visible, 
and  the  lonely  master  of  the  mansion  becomes  conscious 
of  the  visionary  companionship  of  another  world.  Soli- 
tude is  God's  closet.  It  is  the  sacred  auditorium  of  the 
secrets  of  the  spiritual  world.  In  this  whispering-gallery 
without  walls,  tender  and  reverential  spirits  are  fond  of 
hearkening  for  those  occult  tones,  divine  soliloquies,  too 
deep  within  or  too  faintly  far  ever  anywhere  else  to 


148  THE   MORALS   OF   SOLITUDE. 

suffer  their  shy  meanings  to  be  caught.  Given  a  suffi- 
ciently sensitive  intelligence  to  apprehend  the  revela- 
tions, and  every  moment  of  time  is  surcharged  with  ex- 
pressiveness, every  spot  of  space  babbles  ineffable  truths. 
Silence  itself  is  the  conversation  of  God.  We  know  that 
in  the  deepest  apparent  stillness  sounds  will  betray  them- 
selves to  those  who  have  finer  sense  and  pay  keener  at- 
tention than  ordinary.  On  the  Alps,  when  everything 
seems  so  deathly  quiet  in  the  darkness,  place  your  ear  at 
the  surface  of  the  ice,  and  you  may  catch  the  tinkle  of 
rivulets  running  all  through  the  night  in  the  veins  and 
hollows  of  the  frozen  hills.  Has  not  the  soul  too  its 
buried  streams  of  feeling  whose  movements  only  the  most 
absorbed  listening,  in  the  most  hushed  moments,  can 
distinguish  ? 

What  is  it  to  subject  a  thing,  save  to  extricate  yourself 
from  it,  rise  apart,  and  command  it  from  a  higher  posi- 
tion ?  To  overcome  the  world  it  is  indispensable  first  to 
overlook  the  world  from  some  private  vantage-ground 
quietly  aloof.  Would  you  lift  the  soul  above  the  petty 
passions  that  pester  and  ravage  it,  and  survey  the  prizes, 
the  ills,  and  the  frets  of  ordinary  life  in  their  proper  per- 
spective of  littleness  ?  Accustom  yourself  to  go  forth  at 
night,  alone,  and  study  the  landscape  of  immensity  ;  gaze 
up  where  eternity  unveils  her  starry  face  and  looks  down 
forever  without  a  word.  These  exercises,  their  lessons 
truly  learned,  so  far  from  making  us  hate  the  society  of 
our  fellow-creatures,  or  foolishly  suffer  from  its  annoy- 
ances, will  fit  us  wisely  to  enjoy  its  blessings  ;  be  masters 
of  its  honors,  not  victims  of  its  penalties.  If  to  be  alone 
breeds  in  us  a  sullen  taciturnity,  it  is  proof  that  we  are 
already  bad  characters.  The  more  a  misanthrope  is  dis- 
sociated from  men,  the  more  he  loathes  them  ;  the  longer 
a  pure  and  loving  soul  is  kept  from  them,  the  intenser  is 
his  longing  to  be  united  with  them.  None  are  so  bitter 
and  merciless,  so  abounding  in  sneers  and  sarcasms  about 
s'ociety  and  its  occupants,  as  those  most  thoroughly  famif- 
iarized  and  hardened  in  its  routine. 

How  certainly 
The  innocent  white  milk  in  us  is  turned 


THE    USES   OF   SOLITUDE.  1^9 

By  much  persistent  shining  of  the  sun  ! 
Shake  up  the  sweetest  in  us  long  enough 
With  men,  it  drops  to  foolish  curd,  too  sour 
To  feed  the  most  untender  of  Christ's  lambs. 

The  solitary,  if  rich  in  heart,  are  often  the  fondest  of 
talking  when  they  find  a  listener.  It  eases  their  fulness. 
The  wand  of  approaching  sympathy  melts  a  channel  for 
the  pent-up  flood  of  consciousness  to  flow  off  in,  as  when 
the  ice  is  broken  which  had  formed  over  a  spring  and 
forced  the  stream  to  accumulate  far  back  in  its  secret 
runnels.  The  strength  of  our  desire  for  contact  with  so- 
ciety is  proportioned,  properly,  to  the  keenness  of  our 
experience,  the  wealth  of  our  discoveries,  in  solitude. 
No  sooner  has  a  truth  or  principle,  unknown  to  us  before, 
come  into  our  possession,  than  we  are  eager  to  go  out 
armed  with  this  talisman,  and  test  again  the  natures  of 
men,  the  phenomena  of  life,  the  prizes  of  the  world.  It 
is  a  natural  and  wholesome  reaction  which  takes  the 
student  back  from  the  monologue  of  metaphysics  to  the 
dialogue  of  science.  Knowledge  of  self  is  but  half  a 
knowledge  of  the  universe. 

A  great  compensation  for  any  sadness  one  may  feel  in 
being  alone  is  the  power  his  calm  environment  may  be 
made  to  yield  him.  Solitude  is  the  foster-mo'ther  of  sub- 
lime resolves.  It  is  the  earth  of  Antaeus,  every  fresh 
touch  of  which  emits  a  thrill  of  fortifying  renewal.  Rev- 
olutions, sciences,  religions,  have  crystalized  in  the  fervid 
silence  of  lonely  minds.  Had  Joan  of  Arc,  instead  of 
cherishing  lonely  visions  in  her  solitary  life,  frequented 
balls,  whist-parties,  sewing-circles,  and  the  like,  would 
they  have  given  the  poor  maiden,  who  could  not  write 
her  name,  power  to  make  that  name  immortal?  The 
wisdom  of  the  Jesuits  is  perhaps  nowhere  better  shown 
than  in  the  tremendous  regimen  of  solitude  and  contem- 
plation of  death  under  which  they  put  their  novitiates. 
The  results  of  this  discipline  have  been  incomparably 
great,  revolutionizing  in  its  subjects  the  normal  forces  of 
human  nature.  Strength  grows  in  repose  succeeding 
action  ;  and  Pascal  says,  "  We  are  ridiculous  when  we 
seek  repose  in  the  society  of  our  fellows."  Enthusiasm 


150  THE   MORALS   OF   SOLITUDE. 

is  no  more  a  growth  of  the  arena  than  peace  is.  There 
is  infinitely  more  apathy  in  crowded  than  in  deserted 
places.  Overfull  hearts  turn  from  the  ball  to  the  bower. 
In  the  purlieus  of  fashion  indifference  often  passes  for 
repose,  and  coldness  for  power,  but  warmth  for  crude- 
ness,  and  diffidence  for  incapacity. 

Solitude  stimulates  and  feeds,  rather  than  generates, 
purposes.  They  are  to  be  acquired  elsewhere,  confirmed 
and  fortified  here.  The  design  of  Mahommed  was  con- 
ceived during  his  journeys  among  the  idolatrous  tribes, 
as  the  factor  of  Kadijah  ;  but  placed  in  a  focus,  and 
kindled  into  a  contagious  flame,  among  the  lone  hills  of 
the  desert  where  he  so  often  retired  to  muse.  Purposes 
and  vows  are  consolidated  and  intensified  by  reflection 
and  repetition  ;  and  these,  driven  from  the  glare  and 
buzz  of  society,  are  found  in  the  retreat.  Echo  is  the 
frend  of  the  lonely.  Every  great  artist,  every  serious 
genius,  who  wishes  to  create  on  a  rare  height,  feels  the 
need  of  a  refuge  from  the  trifles  and  vulgarities  of  ordi- 
nary people.  Felix  Mendelssohn  died  just  as  he  was  in- 
tending to  withdraw  for  several  years  into  solitude  at 
Rome,  to  work  out  in  an  oratorio  his  idea  of  Christ.  We 
cannot  enough  lament  the  loss  of  the  feelings  that  rich, 
pure,  and  devout  nature  would  have  poured  around  this 
sublime  theme. 

Every  marked  quality  or  power  of  genius  is  a  mental 
polarity.  Nothing  is  ordinarily  so  fatal  to  this  as  a  frit- 
tering multiplicity  of  interests,  a  bewilderment  of  activi- 
ties. A  throng  of  objects  flitting  before  the  eyes  is  irri- 
tating and  exhaustive.  It  is  so  with  the  mind  too.  A 
rapid  alternation  of  attractions  and  repulsions  dries  up 
sympathy  and  crumbles  thought.  To  live  either  in  a  dis- 
tracting medley  of  private  motives  and  efforts,  or  in  the 
constant  frictions  and  frivolities  of  society,  is  to  be  sub- 
jected to  an  influence  of  the  most  deteriorating  character. 
Let  that  influence  be  continuous  and  exclusive,  and  it  will 
soon  depolarize  the  associative  points  of  intellectual 
power.  It  is  remembrance,  admiration,  longing,  wonder, 
musing,  love,  —  whose  congenial  haunts  are  the  still 
library,  the  lonely  shore,  the  hill,  the  glen,  the  sea,  and 


THE   USES    OF   SOLITUDE.  15! 

the  sky,  —  that  feed  and  inspire  the  poet.  He  would  be 
steadily  unpoetized  if  confined  to  the  barren  gossip  of 
saloons,  the  corrosive  emulations  of  the  crowd.  The 
legacy  of  Wordsworth  to  our  times,  in  the  unique  origi- 
nality of  his  genius,  and  its  literary  expression,  perhaps 
has  no  grander  feature  than  his  wise  withdrawal  from  the 
miscellaneous  contacts  and  wear  of  cities  to  the  lakes,  — • 
his  consecration  to  the  stately  care  of  himself  in  the 
bosom  of  brooding  nature,  in  imaginative  sight  of  man- 
kind, in  the  transcendent  embrace  of  God.  His  words 
of  exhortation  to  others  are  a  noble  description  of  his 
own  life.  He  says  :  "  It  is  an  animating  sight  to  see  a 
man  of  genius,  regardless  of  temporary  gains,  whether 
of  money  or  praise,  fixing  his  attention  solely  upon  what 
is  intrinsically  interesting  and  permanent,  and  finding  his 
happiness  in  an  entire  devotion  of  himself  to  such  pur- 
suits as  shall  most  ennoble  human  nature.  We  have  not 
seen  enough  of  this  in  modern  times ;  and  never  was 
there  a  period  in  society  when  such  examples  were  likely 
to  do  more  good  than  at  present." 

The  influence  of  society  is  distracting  or  diffusive  ;  that 
of  seclusion  is  concentrative.  Ruskin  says,  "  An  artist 
should  be  fit  for  the  best  society,  and  should  keep  out  of 
it.  Society  always  has  a  destructive  in'fluence  on  an 
artist ;  first,  by  its  sympathy  with  his  meanest  powers ; 
secondly,  by  its  chilling  want  of  understanding  of  his 
greatest ;  thirdly,  by  its  vain  occupation  of  his  time  and 
thoughts.  Of  course  a  painter  of  men  must  be  among 
men  :  but  it  ought  to  be  as  a  watcher,  not  as  a  compan- 
ion." 

Society,  full  of  multiplicity  and  change,  is  every  way 
finite,  wasting  its  force  in  incessant  throbs ;  solitude,  an 
unaltering  unity,  is  allied  to  the  infinite.  Its  repose  col- 
lects and  redistributes  the  force  expended  by  the  strug- 
gles that  rage  and  subside  unheeded  in  its  measureless 
realm.  Our  times  want  the  brooding  spirit.  When  we 
read,  that,  one  fine  morning,  Mithridates,  king  of  Pontus, 
disappeared  from  his  palace,  and  remained  missing  for 
months,  so  that  he  was  given  up  for  lost ;  and,  when  he 
returned,  it  was  found  that  he  had  wandered,  unknown, 


152  THE   MORALS    OF    SOLITUDE. 

through  the  whole  of  anterior  Asia,  reconnoitering  all 
the  countries  and  peoples, — we  are  impressed  with  a 
sense  of  inscrutable  solitary  force  and  mystery  akin  to 
that  imparted  by  the  ocean,  as  it  goes  forth,  "dread, 
fathomless,  alone."  Such  souls,  huge  reservoirs  of  pur- 
pose and  power,  are  rare  in  any  age,  but  especially  rare 
in  ours.  Bishop  Berkeley  said,  "  In  the  present  age  think- 
ing is  more  talked  of,  but  less  practised,  than  in  ancient 
times."  I  believe  this  to  be  deeply  true ;  reading  and 
other  substitutes  for  thinking  have  vastly  increased  in 
modern  times.  In  power  and  resources  Man  undoubt- 
edly has  gained,  but  men  appear,  relatively,  to  have  lost. 
There  is  a  tremendous  influence  in  a  democratic  people 
to  draw  up  and  pull  down  exceptions  to  the  general  level, 
—  an  influence  commonly  fatal  to  the  production  of  rich 
and  strong  individualities.  There  is  ground  for  Byron's 
satirical  stroke :  — 

Society  is  now  one  polished  horde, 

Formed  of  two  mighty  tribes,  the  Bores  and  Bored. 

Our  familiar  is  rather  a  nimble  and  tricksy  spirit,  like 
Puck,  than  that  awing  genius  of  brooding  silence  which 
kept  Socrates,  spell-bound,  standing  fast  in  one  spot  all 
night.  We  have  superabundant  impulse,  but  little  pa- 
tience. It  is  all  come-and-go,  and  no  stay.  The  dis- 
chargers of  power  are  multiplied  out  of  all  proportion 
to  the  generators  of  power.  The  swift  succession  of 
events,  the  thousand  vibrating  relationships  of  the  age, 
the  incessant  teeming  of  business  enterprises,  political 
squabbles,  reviews  and  books,  scatter  our  attention  and 
exhaust  our  energy.  We  lie,  spread  abroad  and  open, 
at  the  mercy  of  a  disintegrating  swarm  of  influences, 
instead  of  being  gathered  into  one  available  mass  of 
purpose  steadily  directed  to  its  aim.  Force  enough  is 
wasted  in  the  sterile  chatter  of  conceited  criticism  to  pro- 
duce much  of  permanent  worth,  if  it  were  converted  into 
creative  meditation.  And  so  far  from  seeking  to  neutral- 
ize and  correct  the  evil,  strenuously  confronting  it,  resist- 
ing it,  and  curing  it  by  a  rectifying  regimen  of  meditation 
and  prayerful  seclusion,  a  withdrawn  and  studious  culture, 


THE   USES   OF   SOLITUDE.  153 

carefully  adapted  in  each  instance  to  the  peculiarities  of 
the  person  and  his  circumstances,  we  make  it  worse  by 
indulging  its  instincts,  seeking  relief  in  sympathy  or 
escape  in  confusion,  turning  our  already  harassed  sensi- 
bilities to  a  distracting  medley  of  meetings,  parties, 
newspapers,  novels,  theatres.  Crabbe  says,  with  his 
usual  sharpsightedness,  — 

Men  feel  their  weakness  and  to  numbers  run, 
Themselves  to  strengthen  or  themselves  to  shun. 

Exactly  the  opposite  of  what  they  should  do.  The  like- 
minded  may  confirm  our  disease  by  flatteringly  reflecting 
it ;  the  unlike-minded  only  take  our  attention  from  it 
while,  perhaps,  it  grows  more  inveterate.  Surely  it  is 
better  to  extirpate  than  to  forget  an  tvil.  Killing  time 
is  a  poor  substitute  for  improving  time.  Dissipation  may 
stem  or  drown  grief,  but  cannot  heal  it.  The  hospital  of 
loneliness  is  better  fitted  for  the  treatment  of  wounds 
than  the  stadium  of  competitors  and  spectators.  Society 
drains,  solitude  supplies.  That  is  the  place  for  expendi- 
ture, this  for  recovery.  This  is  the  place  of  preparation, 
that  of  performance.  The  work  of  a  man  who  leads  a  life 
of  dissipating  publicity  flattens  into  a  marsh ;  the  work 
of  a  man  who  guards  his  aim  by  a  solitary  determination 
looms  into  a  mountain.  Wordsworth  puts  into  the  mouth 
of  his  Oswald  a  true  and  striking  image  :  — 

Join  twenty  tapers  of  unequal  height, 
And  light  them  joined,  and  you  will  see  the  less 
How  't  will  burn  down  the  taller,  and  they  all 
Shall  prey  upon  the  tallest. 

It  is  fortunate  for  us,  in  this  gossiping,  headlong  age,  that, 
in  each  recurrence  of  slumber  the  soul  takes  an  invigorat- 
ing bath  of  loneliness  ;  that,  in  the  mysterious  alternation 
of  our  existence,  every  night  the  babbling  streams  of  so- 
ciety empty  into  the  oceanic  solitude  of  sleep  and  dreams. 
The  great  soul,  apparently  dwarfed  to  the  stature  of  com- 
mon men,  as  soon  as  alone,  dilates  again  to  its  native 
majesty,  and  begins  to  hold  converse  with  themes  of  its 
own  altitude. 

7* 


154  THE   MORALS   OF   SOLITUDE. 

If  the  chosen  one  could  never  be  alone, 
In  deep  mid-silence,  open-doored  to  God, 
No  greatness  ever  had  been  dreamed  or  done : 
Among  dull  hearts  a  prophet  never  grew ; 
The  nurse  of  full-grown  souls  is  Solitude. 

Solitude  is  the  tent  of  the  Almighty,  which  no  thoughtful 
man  can  enter  without  awe,  or  need  leave  without  shrift 
and  an  access  of  strength. 

For  fine  spirits,  hurt  and  weary  in  the  conflicts  of  much 
company,  harassed  with  its  fret  and  worn  with  its  care,  to 
be  alone  for  a  season  is  a  luxurious  refreshment,  an  in- 
describable solace.  Chateaubriand  surrounded  himself 
in  Paris  with  a  few  choice  friends,  profoundly  close  and 
dear,  and  sensitively  avoided  the  crowd,  which  he  called 
"  The  vast  desert  of  men."  What  a  eulogy  of  solitude  is 
contained  in  such  a  phrase  as  this  of  Wordsworth:  — 
"  The  fruitful  calm  of  greatly  silent  hearts  !  "  Suffering 
from  a  fevered  breast  and  a  distempered  mind,  who  would 
not  find  it  a  benign  change  to  leave  the  painted  harlot, 
Fashion,  for  the  sad  wood-nymph,  Solitude?  With  her 
society  the  sage  flees  into  his  thought,  the  saint  into  his 
God,  —  and  the  horrid  discord  that  tore  and  stunned 
them  rolls  away  and  becomes  a  murmur  on  the  horizon. 
The  nerves,  rasped  and  drained  in  the  collisions  of  the 
crowd,  are  lubricated  and  refilled  in  the  repose  of  soli- 
tude. The  fainting  consciousness  is  thus  restored,  vital 
color  put  into  its  fading  states,  the  wearing  effect  of  con- 
fused voices  and  calls  stopped.  Of  course,  if  the  ideas  of 
the  things  that  worried  us  follow  into  our  retreat,  and  con- 
tinue to  operate  there,  these  good  results  cannot  be  ex- 
pected ;  and  the  organism  must  sink  under  the  constant 
iteration  of  demands.  To  profit  by  retirement  we  must 
not  allow  the  ideal  equivalents  of  the  goads  and  loads 
that  stung  and  galled  us  in  the  thoroughfare  to  pursue 
and  irritate  us  still,  but  win  a  true  respite  from  them  by 
ceasing  to  think  of  them.  And  we  can  cease  to  think  of 
them  by  occupying  our  attention  with  something  better, 
something  soothing  and  elevating,  something  grand  and 
lovely.  The  unhappy  heart  overwhelmed  by  misfortunes, 
when  deserted  by  old  associates  in  whom  it  had  fondly 
confided,  is  apt  to  add  to  the  crushing  weight  of  the 


THE   USES   OF    SOLITUDE.  155 

misfortunes  the  bitterer  weight  of  a  haunting  recollection 
of  the  desertion,  a  recollection  full  of  enervating  melan 
choly,  or  perhaps  full  of  poisonous  hate.  How  much 
better  to  forget  the  desertion  and  think  of  remedying  the 
misfortunes  !  The  traveller  swept  by  an  avalanche  into  an 
Alpine  chasm,  beyond  sight  and  sound,  and  left  there  by 
his  fellows  and  guides,  to  die,  alone  in  the  frozen  gulf, 
must  not  fasten  in  his  brain  the  grievous  and  despairing 
thought  of  his  companions  gone  on  their  way ;  he  will 
best  do  his  duty  by  resolutely  turning  his  mind  to  a  con- 
templation of  God  and  immortality,  or  to  some  manly 
plan  for  self-rescue.  Bonnivard,  in  a  dungeon  in  the 
castle  of  Chillon,  was  fastened  to  a  ring  in  a  column  by  a 
chain  four  feet  in  length.  He  could  walk  only  three 
steps.  He  resolved  to  keep  himself  alive  until  some  prov- 
idential deliverance  should  enable  him  again  to  serve 
the  cause  of  liberty.  A  channel  worn  three  or  four  inches 
into  the  surface  of  the  rocky  floor,  still  visible,  marks  the 
pathetic  limits  of  his  daily  and  determined  exercise ;  and 
within  this  circle  may  be  seen  three  yet  deeper  cavities, 
made  by  the  three  footfalls  which  his  chain  allowed  him. 
After  six  years  he  was  rescued.  It  was  his  indomitable 
purpose  alone  which  kept  him  from  decay  and  death. 

"  Solitude  is  the  home  of  the  strong,  silence  their 
prayer."  Such  is  the  just  and  impressive  aphorism  of 
Ravignan.  Its  counterpart  would  be,  Society  is  the 
refuge  of  the  weak,  speech  their  confession  •  of  defect. 
Mind  and  heart  grow  stronger  by  drawing  strength  from 
their  environment.  They  cannot  create,  they  must  im- 
bibe, power.  Self-contemplation  alone  is  a  jejune  and 
barren  process.  Nothing  is  so  sterilizing  as  retirement, 
when,  instead  of  bringing  us  into,  it  cuts  us  off  from, 
communication  with  the  aboriginal  sources  of  our  life. 
The  very  measure  of  genius  is  its  capacity  of  sympathy 
with  its  race,  with  the  universal  and  disinterested  as  dis- 
tinguished from  the  individual  and  selfish.  Every  rumi- 
nant must  take  new  food,  or  the  cud  itself  will  fail.  The 
individual  does  not  manufacture  force,  but  derives  it  from 
the  fountain-head  of  God  through  the  drenched  universe. 
It  will  not  be  imparted  to  him  and  accumulated  in  him 


156  THE   MORALS   OF   SOLITUDE. 

without  his  co-operation-.  To  expect  the  spirit  to  be 
strengthened  by  foreign  appliances,  omitting  its  own  ac- 
tion, is  absurd.  Would  you  support  a  bird  with  props  ? 
Mental  force  is  communicated  in  mental  food,  whence  it  is 
extracted  by  the  digestion  of  the  discriminative  faculties, 
and  secreted  by  the  glands  of  the  soul,  and  reservoired, 
subject  to  the  summons  of  the  will.  This  process  is  none 
the  less  real  for  being  without  our  consciousness.  The 
increase  of  our  power,  therefore,  if  in  its  primary  as- 
pect a  gift  to  us,  is  in  its  secondary  aspect  an  appropri- 
ation by  us.  And  in  truth  these  two  are  one.  Where 
both  are  not,  neither  is.  The  giving  from  the  whole  and 
the  taking  by  the  part  are  one  indivisible  act.  Their 
mystic  consent  makes  the  identity  of  life,  as  perception 
is  the  middle  term  in  which  object  and  subject  coalesce 
and  are  lost  to  reappear  in  their  ideal  equivalent.  Con- 
tact with  a  mass  of  humanity  or  social  machinery  too  vast 
for  definite  reaction,  tends  to  make  a  rich  soul  morbid, 
starts  activities  it  cannot  satisfy.  Contact,  on  the  con- 
trary, with  overwhelming  natural  forces  or  material 
scenery,  is  salutary,  concentrates  the  soul  in  a  brooding 
and  assimilative  mood  which  collects  its  powers  and 
brings  them  into  equilibrium.  It  is  said  that  those  who 
stand  on  the  floor  of  Saint  Paul's  Cathedral  hear  a  strange 
sound  rising  and  sinking  in  the  dome,  —  the  aerial  rever- 
beration of  the  combined  noises  of  London.  That  mul- 
titudinous murmur,  the  endless  roar  of  earth's  hugest  city, 
must  be  painfully  oppressive  to  one  who  thinks  of  the 
guilt,  the  struggle,  the  glory  and  misery  represented  by 
it;  the  effort  to  disentangle  and  track  home  its  moral 
suggestions  must  be  wearisome  and  disheartening.  But 
the  roaring  of  the  ocean  on  a  forsaken  coast,  typical  of 
the  everlasting  freshness,  strength,  and  grandeur  of  na- 
ture, is  peace-giving  and  wholesome,  soothes  while  h 
excites. 

When  these  conditions  are  observed  solitude  exercises 
a  nutritious  and  tonic  influence  on  the  higher  parts  of  our 
nature,  not  only  refreshing  the  weary  and  fortifying  the 
weak,  but  renewing  loyalty  when  it  is  tempted  and  con- 
firming innocence  when  it  falters.  Then  loneliness  and 


1HE   USES   OF   SOLITUDE.  157 

listening  are  the  richest  nourishment  of  the  soul.  Con- 
science, judgment,  better  purpose,  withdrawing  from  the 
storm  of  seduction,  have  an  opportunity  to  recover  their 
poise.  Its  effect  is  as  useful  in  giving  moral  direction 
to  our  energies  as  it  is  in  invigorating  their  source.  In 
the  midst  of  scrambling  antagonists,  wild  with  the  ex- 
citement of  the  game,  man  is  tempted  to  forget  the  moral 
law,  and  fancy  that  course  best  which  points  the  speedi- 
est path  to  the  prize  ;  but  a  little  reflection,  in  sober  re- 
tirement, disperses  the  perilous  falsehoods  of  the  arena ; 
the  dust  of  busy  desire  settles  ;  the  clouds  and  veils  of 
delusion  and  occasion  blow  aside ;  the  steady  lights  of 
morality  shine  out ;  and  from  the  stars  of  solitude  eter- 
nity sheds  sublimer  counsels  on  the  soul  than  are  ever 
discerned  by  aid  of  the  flaring  torches  of  time. 

To  one  who  bravely  accepts  his  public  responsibilities, 
but  keeps  conscientious  watch  over  the  springs  ,of  his 
conduct,  society  is  the  open  sea  where  virtue  meets  its 
foes,  solitude  the  harbor  where  it  repairs  its  damages. 
Careers  of  loud  pretence  and  manifold  showiness  have 
frequently  turned  out  to  be  hollow,  the  speedy  prey  of 
contempt,  while  "  obscurest  lives  have  the  starriest  souls 
disclosed."  The  wild  rose  beside  the  mountain  brook 
has  a  freshness  of  beauty,  takes  from  its  mighty  environ- 
ments of  unadulterated  nature  a  charm,  which  nothing 
shown  by  its  haughty  sister  in  the  imperial  conservatory 
can  atone  for  the  lack  of.  There  are  qualities  of  charac- 
ter, sacred  beauties  of  virgin  souls,  so  infinitely  shy  in 
their  subtle  modesty  and  refinement,  that  public  exposure 
profanes  and  destroys  them. 

A  charm  most  spiritual,  faint, 

And  delicate,  forsakes  the  breast, 
Bird-like,  when  it  perceives  the  taint 

Of  prying  breath  upon  its  nest 

Solitude  is  the  nunnery  of  an  innocent  mind.  It  is  the 
asylum  of  those  who  aspire  too  high  for  the  sympathies 
of  their  fellows,  —  whose  standards  are  too  exalted  for 
the  slow  and  sluggish  perceptions  of  their  comrades. 
Such  an  one,  constantly  feeling  himself  lowered  and  in- 


158  THE    MORALS   OF   SOLITUDE. 

jured  by  the  judgments  to  which  he  is  subjected,  at 
length  seeks  protection,  and  strives  to  sustain  himself 
on  his  true  level  in  the  only  way  availaHe  ;  he  withdraws, 
wraps  the  curtain  of  his  royal  thought  around  him,  and 
lives  in  a  sublime  privacy.  The  few  noble  spirits  who 
make  a  master-purpose  of  studying  to  attain  an  ideal 
perfection  are  always  affecters  of  solitude.  Shake- 
speare's Prospero  is  an  imposing  example  of  them,  de- 
scribing himself  as  — 

Neglecting  worldly  ends,  all  dedicate 

To  closeness,  and  the  bettering  of  my  mind. 

Those  who  supremely  love  truth,  beauty,  and  goodness, 
form  the  most  illustrious  society  in  the  world,  and  the 
sparsest.  Schopenhauer  says :  "  For  the  most  part  we 
have  only  the  choice  between  solitude  and  vulgarity. 
The  most  social  men  are  the  least  intellectual.  To  say 
'  He  is  very  unsocial,'  is  almost  equivalent  to  saying, 
'  He  is  a  man  of  great  qualities.' " 

An  ingenuous  and  heroic  man  when  left  alone  is  in  his 
confessional  and  armory,  where  he  sees  the  pure  standard 
of  duty,  repents  of  his  errors,  rectifies  what  is  amiss,  and 
with  sincere  vows  equips  himself  afresh  for  the  good 
fight.  Solitude  is  the  private  palaestra  where  spiritual 
athletes  put  themselves  in  training  for  the  public  contests 
of  life.  It  is  there  we  learn  the  first,  last,  greatest  lesson 
taught  by  our  destiny,  namely,  patience.  For,  in  the 
words  of  Parsons,  —  the  excellent  words  of  a  true 
poet,  — 

Patience  is  the  part 

Of  all  whom  Time  records  among  the  great, 
The  only  gift  I  know,  the  only  art, 
To  strengthen  up  our  frailties  to  our  fate. 

To  stay  in  seclusion  awhile  is  to  keep  a  fast  of  the 
spirit.  Its  influence  is  as  wholesome  and  stimulative  on 
the  mind  as  that  of  occasional  abstinence  is  on  the  body. 
"  To  me,"  Richter  says,  "  a  solitary  apartment  is  a  spirit- 
ual fountain-hall  full  of  medicinal  water."  La  Bruyere 
says,  "  The  misfortunes  of  men  proceed  from  their  ina- 
bility to  be  alone  ;  from  gaming,  riot,  extravagance,  dis- 


THE    USES   OF    SOLITUDE.  159 

sipation,  envy,  and  forgetting  God  and  themselves."  The 
grasshopper  leaps  about  with  his  pertinacious  click  amidst 
the  ruins  of  the  Abbey  at  Ely,  where  Canute  bade  his 
rowers  pause  off  the  shore,  that  he  might  listen  to  the 
monks  singing  their  evening  hymn.  To  linger  there,  sur- 
rendering the  soul  to  all  the  pensive  morals  of  the  place, 
must  mellow  and  deepen  the  heart.  But  to  spend  much 
time  in  a  gambling-room,  in  the  depraved  current  of  men 
who  come  and  go,  drinking,  smoking,  staking,  swearing, 
can  hardly  fail  to  thicken  the  rust  and  grossness  on  the 
mind. 

The  streams  flowing  directly  from  the  glaciers  are 
turbid  and  chalky,  thick  with  triturated  stones ;  but, 
drawn  apart  in  glens  or  wayside  pools,  they  become 
wonderfully  clear,  having  deposited  the  sediment  they 
before  held  in  solution.  Human  souls,  withdrawing  from 
the  rush  and  friction  of  the  wearing  world,  and  pausing 
in  quiet  places,  surrendering  themselves  into  the  natural 
arms  of  God,  Rest  and  Silence,  grow  transparent,  pre- 
cipitating the  abrasions  of  life.  They  resume  their  native 
purity,  and  at  once  reveal  the  bed  of  consciousness  and 
reflect  the  blue  of  heaven. 

Let  those  who  feel  the  lonesome  pinings  of  the  heart, 
beware  of  yielding  to  the  temptations  which  would  induce 
them  to  sink  from  their  high  promptings  and  conform 
to  the  average  range  and  custom  for  the  sake  of  fellow- 
ship. Many  have  done  this,  and  soon  suffered  worse 
than  before,  and  bitterly  regretted  the  degrading  com- 
promise. The  buzz  and  clamor  of  unsympathizing  throngs 
are  an  aggravation,  not  a  relief,  of  the  aching  and  pining 
of  an  affectionate  nature.  His  craving,  taken  up  and  re- 
peated in  all  these  cold  mirrors,  is  so  many  times  flung 
back,  unsatisfied  and  heightened,  into  his  consciousness. 

The  heart  that  home  rejects  to  crowds  may  fly ; 
Gay  glides  the  dance,  soft  music  fills  the  hall : 
It  flees,  to  find  the  loneliness  through  all. 

The  chirruping  of  millions  of  crickets  breaks  the  silent 
monotony  of  the  twilight  fields,  merely  to  make  the  in- 
tegral solitude  multitudinous;  it  is  not  a  felicitous  ex- 


160  THE    MORALS    OF    SOLITUDE. 

change.  To  be  capable  of  a  great  aim,  and  of  sustained 
efforts  to  realize  it,  is  to  be  one  man  taken  out  of  ten 
thousand.  They  who  have  this  capacity  will  not  be 
found  hovering  about  saloons,  half  crushed  in  the  rush 
to  the  midnight  tables  of  vulgar  fashion.  They  will 
be  found  rooted  in  solitude.  For  the  sustenance  of 
their  spirits  they  revert  from  the  frothy  speeches  of 
the  platform,  from  the  spawn  of  the  press,  to  the  al- 
coved  treasures  and  the  aristocratic  comradery  of  the 
great  minds  of  all  ages,  the  profound  masters  in  the 
science  of  monopathy.  Who  would  not  rather  be  alone, 
and  be  capable  of  appreciating  the  dialogues  of  Plato, 
than  be  amidst  the  crew  of  a  Mississippi  flat-boat,  dan- 
cing with  boisterous  mirth  to  a  Negro  melody  ?  Ac- 
cept your  pathetic  loneliness  without  shrinking,  and  pace 
the  bleak  waste  without  complaint,  despite  the  yearn- 
ing and  the  grief.  Travel  on,  if  need  be,  through  the 
stony  wilderness  of  despair,  without  a  star,  faithful  to 
conscience  and  God  ;  and  an  omnipresent  voice  at  length 
will  interpret  the  desolation  into  peace,  and  fill  the  trans- 
figured solitude  with  the  sweetness  of  an  infinite  com- 
panionship. 

For  loneliness  not  only  affords  incomparable  opportu- 
nities for  preparation,  not  only  yields  strength  and  rest, 
not  only  ministers  to  virtue ;  it  also  furnishes  rare  and 
costly  joys  in  unequalled  compensation  for  the  pangs  felt 
in  it.  Seclusion  and  peace  are  the  guardians  of  innocent 
dreams,  the  nourishers  of  poetic  feeling  and  holy  faith. 
The  disturbance  of  rivalry  with  another,  of  contempt  or 
injustice  from  another,  shakes  the  liquid  glass  of  soul  in 
which  the  blessed  visions  move  and  the  divine  joys  sleep, 
and  ruffles  them  away ;  as  when  in  the  material  world 
Wind  rides  forth  with  uplifted  sceptre, 

And  breaks 
The  pageants  mirrored  in  the  lakes. 

The  grandest  bestowals  approach  us  not  when  we  an 
elbowing  in  the  multitude  for  a  conspicuous  place,  bul 
when,  reticent  and  receptive,  quiet  and  prayerful,  we  wail 
on  destiny  in  secret.  The  king  draws  near  with  a  throng 


THE   USES   OF   SOLITUDE.  l6l 

£.mid  flaunting  banners  and  salvos  of  cannon.  God 
comes  shrouded  in  silence  and  alone.  If 

We  needs  must  hunger,  better  for  man's  love 
Than  God's  truth  !  better  for  companions  sweet 
Than  great  convictions  ! 

Jean  Paul  says,  "  Great  souls  attract  sorrows  as  moun- 
tains tempests."  They  also  command  the  same  sublime 
prospects,  and  bestow  the  same  inestimable  benefits  on 
the  plains.  It  is  noticeable  how  fond  men  of  genius  are 
of  studying  late  at  night.  In  the  mysterious  silence  and 
seclusion  of  the  time  their  feelings  find  an  exciting  affin- 
ity, and  their  thoughts  are  busiest.  The  sounds  of  outer 
industry  have  died  on  the  air.  The  dusky  landscapes 
stretch  off  into  unbroken  obscurity.  The  shapes  or  the 
footfalls  of  passers  no  longer  vary  the  monotony.  Even 
pleasure  and  rivalry,  sickness  and  pain,  care  and  avarice, 
are  lulled  to  rest,  and  subside  into  dreams  or  lapse  to 
temporary  oblivion.  Then  the  great  poet,  sage,  saintly 
student  and  lover  of  humanity,  solemn  and  ardent  adorer 
of  God,  muses  and  toils.  His  imagination  spreads  its 
powerful  vans,  and,  alone,  awe-struck  comrade  of  infinity, 
he  sails  on,  high  over  the  sleeping  hosts  of  mankind,  and 
far  away,  beneath  the  stars. 

Wordsworth,  who  is  one  of  the  soundest  and  care- 
fullest  teachers  mankind  have  had,  writes: — "I  do  not 
recommend  absolute  solitude  as  an  advantage  to  any- 
body. I  think  it  a  great  evil ;  frequent  intercourse  with 
the  living  world  seems  necessary  to  keep  the  mind  in 
health  and  vigor."  But  we  are  indebted  to  the  same 
deep  and  patient  master  of  experience  for  the  following 
paragraph,  —  the  solemn  and  burning  burden  of  a 
prophet:  —  "It  is  an  awful  truth,  that  there  neither  is 
nor  can  be  any  genuine  enjoyment  of  poetry  among 
nineteen  out  of  twenty  of  those  persons  who  live,  or 
wish  to  live,  in  the  broad  light  of  the  world, — among 
those  who  either  are,  or  are  striving  to  make  themselves, 
people  of  consideration  in  society.  This  is  a  truth,  and 
an  awful  one,  because  to  be  incapable  of  a  feeling  of 
poetry,  in  my  sense  of  the  word,  is  to  be  without  love 
of  human  nature  and  reverence  for  God." 


1 62  THE   MORALS    OF   SOLITUDE. 

The  nature  of  the  man  exposed  to  a  constant  round 
of  fashionable  living  undergoes  a  crisping  and  hardening 
process,  a  veneering  process,  which  destroys  its  suscepti- 
bility to  the  impressions  of  natural  beauty,  mystery,  and 
piety.  He  outgrows  —  or  rather  dies  out  from  —  the 
power  of  wonder,  love,  and  enthusiasm.  This  encase- 
ment of  blunting  usage  makes  him  incapable  of  the 
purest  range  of  emotions,  cuts  him  off  from  admiration, 
pity,  every  deep  and  fresh  impulse  of  unselfish  experi- 
ence. Robbed  thus  of  sentiment,  dry,  conceited,  sur- 
feited, he  never  thinks  to  ask  in  adoring  wonder  and 
delight,  WHO  it  is  that  polishes  the  eye  of  the  antelope, 
pins  the  rainbow  to  the  cloud,  and,  as  often  as  Night 
returns,  sets  on  her  sable  brow  the  silent  crown  of  stars. 
On  the  contrary,  he  who  seeks  every  opportunity  for  se- 
questered reflection,  —  who  pauses,  apart,  when  the  mur 
muring  tides  of  toil  are  as  still  as  if  there  were  no  life, 
to  commune  with  the  ultimate  facts  of  experience,  is 
likely  to  be  open  to  the  poetic  and  religious  lures  of  mys- 
tery, quite  sure  to  learn  the  value  of  simplicity  and  inde- 
pendence, and  to  be  happy  in  himself,  not  resting  for  his 
content  on  complicated  and  precarious  sets  of  conditions. 

The  happiness  supposed  to  belong  in  those  hallowed 
refuges  from  the  storms  and  cares  of  the  world,  the  ab- 
beys and  convents  of  the  Middle  Age,  is  charmingly  indi- 
cated, as  Montalembert  has  remarked,  in  the  names  the 
monks  gave  their  religious  houses.  Good  Place,  Beauti- 
ful Place,  Dear  Island,  Sweet  Vale,  Good  Rest,  Blessed 
Valley,  Haven  of  Delights,  Valley  of  Peace,  Bird's  Nest, 
Valley  of  Salvation,  Way  of  Heaven,  Sweet  Fountain, 
Brightness  of  God,  Happy  Meadow,  Blessed  Wood,  Con- 
solation, Dear  Place,  Joy,  Crown  of  Heaven.  The  pro- 
nunciation of  these  delicious  words  is  like  the  dripping 
of  successive  drops  of  honey  on  the  tongue  ;  and,  with  a 
half  melancholy,  half  luxurious  heart-ache,  one  almost  longs 
to  loose  himself  from  all  other  ties,  and  go  make  his  ever- 
lasting home  in  one  of  these  still  retreats. 

Many  a  visitor  lingering  beyond  the  intended  limits  of 
his  stay  in  mountain  vales,  the  secluded  homes  of  inno- 
cence, truth,  frankness,  and  health,  has  bid  them  farewell 


THE   USES   OF   SOLITUDE.  163 

with  an  achuig  heart  and  with  tears.  Does  any  one  leave 
a  crowded  ball-room  or  supper-party  so  ?  The  picture 
drawn  by  Robert  Burns,  with  his  artless  but  powerful 
touch  of  sweet  simplicity,  must  wake  a  response  in  every 
unperverted  bosom. 

How  blest  the  Solitary's  lot ! 

Who,  all-forgetting,  all-forgot, 

Within  his  humble  cell,  « 

The  cavern  wild,  with  tangling  roots, 

Sits  o'er  his  newly  gathered  fruits, 

Beside  his  crystal  well  ! 

Or,  haply,  to  his  evening  thought, 

By  unfrequented  stream, 

The  ways  of  men  are  distant  brought, 

A  faint  collected  dream. 

The  intensely  poetic  feeling  for  the  secret  haunts  of 
nature,  the  semi-religious  love  of  the  lonely  and  sublime 
scenes  of  glens  and  mountains,  the  solacing  and  restora- 
tive charm  of  nature  for  hurt  and  over-sensitive  minds,  — 
this  marked  phase  of  modern  experience  is  quite  a  recent 
growth.  The  deserted  and  impressive  scenery  of  the 
world  used  to  be  awful  to  men.  Henri  Martin,  speaking 
of  the  feeling  towards  nature  expressed  in  the  French 
literature  of  the  seventeenth  century,  says,  "  The  smallest 
solitary  valley  was  a  horrible  solitude,  the  smallest  rock,  a 
frightful  chaos."  And  he  adds  that,  "  it  was  the  excess 
of  their  sociality,  the  absolute  necessity  of  conversation, 
that  gave  rise  to  this  abhorrence  of  the  desert."  But  a 
deeper  and  darker  influence  than  this  Parisian  gloss 
would  imply,  lay  under  the  experience.  It  was  the  gen- 
eral cruelty  and  terror  and  superstition  that  were  abroad.' 
It  was  a  lurking  belief  in  diabolic  spirits  and  agencies, — 
that  demoniacal  possession  of  nature  in  which  the  pagan 
mythology  died  out  in  mediaeval  Christendom.  The 
heathen  deities,  fauns,  dryads,  oreads,  that  once  tricksily 
danced  over  the  classic  landscapes,  under  the  influence 
of  the  popular  Christianity  had  changed  into  devils  haunt- 
ing every  daik  and  remote  place,  making  solitude  fearful. 
Rousseau,  Saint  Pierre,  Chateaubriand,  free  from  this 
superstition,  wounded  by  men,  bearing  their  passionate 
souls  into  the  retreats  of  nature,  finding  balm,  comfort, 


164  THE    MORALS   OF    SOLITUDE. 

health,  bliss  in  communion  with  her,  by  the  creative  genius 
so  eloquently  breathed  in  their  writings  spread  abroad 
the  new  and  delightful  sentiment  afterwards  deepened  by 
Wordsworth,  Byron,  Shelley,  and  scores  of  other  gifted 
authors,  and  now  become  so  common.  Bernardin  Saint 
Pierre,  whose  famous  "  Studies  of  Nature"  have  been  so 
influential,  celebrates  in  this  work  his  own  grateful  experi- 
ence. At  the  time  his  "  Paul  and  Virginia  "  had  melted 
all  hearts,  from  the  palace  to  the  cottage,  he  felt  his  own 
heart  breaking  within  him  as  he  wandered,  poor,  sick, 
homeless,  alone,  and  despairing.  "  The  ingratitude,"  he 
says,  "  of  those  from  whom  I  had  deserved  kindness,  un- 
expected family  misfortunes,  the  loss  of  my  small  patri- 
mony, the  blasting  of  my  hopes,  had  made  dreadful  in 
roads  upon  my  health  and  reason.  I  found  it  impossible 
to  continue  in  a  room  where  there  was  company.  I  could 
not  even  cross  an  alley  in  a  public  garden  if  several  per- 
sons had  collected  in  it.  When  alone,  my  malady  sub- 
sided. At  the  sight  of  any  one  walking  to  the  place 
where  I  was,  I  felt  my  whole  frame  agitated,  and  was 
obliged  to  retire.  I  often  said  to  myself,  My  sole  study 
has  been  to  merit  well  of  mankind;  why  do  I  fear  them?" 
He  was  restored  in  body  and  mind  by  following  the  ad- 
vice of  his  friend  Rousseau.  "  Renouncing  my  books,  I 
threw  my  eyes  upon  the  works  of  nature,  which  spoke  to 
all  my  senses  a  language  that  neither  time  nor  nations 
have  it  in  their  power  to  alter.  Thenceforth  my  histories 
and  my  journals  were  the  herbage  of  the  fields  and  mead- 
ows. My  thoughts  did  not  go  forth  painfully  after  them, 
as  in  the  case  of  human  systems ;  but  their  thoughts,  un- 
der a  thousand  engaging  forms,  quietly  sought  me.  In 
these  I  studied  without  effort  the  laws  of  the  Universal 
Wisdom."  The  irritability  was  stolen  from  his  temper, 
the  soreness  from  his  mind,  the  wounds  from  his  affec- 
tions, and  he  grew  well  and  happy, — healed  by  the.  accords, 
sanctities,  and  repose  of  Nature,  who  smiled  on  her  votary, 

Mild  druid  of  her  woodpaths  dim, 
And  laid  her  great  heart  bare  to  him. 

It  is  strange  how  deeply  linked  the  love  of  nature  is 


THE   USES   OF   SOLITUDE.  165 

with  the  souls  of  her  frank  intimates,  —  how  fondly,  even 
in  their  dying  moments,  they  yearn  over  her  familiar  spots 
with  memories  unwilling  to  separate.  It  is  touching  to 
read  of  Robin  Hood  shooting  his  last  arrow  to  the  place 
in  the  forest  glade  where  he  wanted  his  grave  to  be. 
Wilson,  the  ornithologist,  wished  that  he  might  be  buried 
in  the  woods,  where  the  birds  would  sing  above  his  grave. 
The  inmost  fibres  of  the  heart  mystically  respond  to  the 
romantic  peace  of  the  immemorial  antiquity  of  nature. 
And  there  is  always  a  double  charm  in  the  protected  re- 
pose and  loveliness  of  lonely  nature  when  it  is  experienced 
as  a  contrast  with  the  turmoil  of  civilization,  the  wrongs 
of  unkindly  men,  the  sorrows  of  life.  Thomson  cries,  in 
his  "  Hymn  on  Solitude,"  — 

O,  let  me  pierce  thy  secret  cell, 
And  in  thy  deep  recesses  dwell ! 
Perhaps  from  Norwood's  oak-clad  hill, 
When  meditation  has  her  fill, 
I  just  may  cast  my  careless  eyes 
Where  London's  spiry  turrets  rise, 
Think  of  its  crimes,  its  cares,  its  pain, 
Then  shield  me  in  the  woods  again. 

When  the  gentle  and  holy  Silvio  Pellico  left- his  prison, 
prematurely  aged  and  broken,  he  felt  that  the  only  boon 
left  for  him  was  serenity.  He  withdrew  from  politics, 
from  the  world,  devoting  himself  to  his  parents  and  to  the 
religion  of  a  peaceful  inner  life.  He  did  this  in  no  spirit 
of  hostility,  but  in  a  spirit  of  resignation.  He  said,  "  I 
read,  I  think,  I  love  my  friends,  I  hate  no  one,  I  respect 
the  opinions  of  others  and  preserve  my  own."  As  quoted 
by  Tuckerman,  in  his  beautiful  sketch  of  the  Italian  Mar- 
tyr, he  wrote  to  his  friend  Foresti :  "  I  have  learned  that 
but  little  is  needed  to  beautify  existence  save  the  society 
of  the  loved  and  honorable."  Yet  so  misunderstood  and 
persecuted  was  he  by  personal  critics,  that  he  was  forced 
to  say,  "  I  left  Spielberg  to  suffer  another  martyrdom  in 
my  own  country,  —  calumny,  desertion,  and  scorn,  which 
have  stripped  all  earthly  illusion  from  life."  The  re- 
ligious consolations  of  loneliness,  a  resignation  to  retire- 
ment in  forgiveness  and  faith,  are  the  choicest  resource 
left  for  such  a  man  in  such  circumstances. 


1 66  THE    MORALS   OF    SOLITUDE. 

There  can  be  no  equable,  sufficing  happiness  except  in 
a  self-ruled  and  withdrawn  spirit,  —  a  spirit  that,  in  the 
idea  of  God,  busy  with  impersonal  and  eternal  objects,  in 
dear  retirement,  reposes  on  great  bases  of  truth,  noble- 
ness, and  peace.  I  hardly  know  of  a  more  touching 
proof  of  this  than  is  afforded  by  the  experience  of  the 
illustrious  Madame  Recamier.  After  forty  years  of  un- 
challenged queenship  in  French  society,  constantly  envel- 
oped in  an  intoxicating  incense  of  admiration  and  love 
won  not  less  by  her  goodness  and  purity  than  by  her 
beauty  and  grace,  she  writes  from  Dieppe  to  her  niece  : 
"  I  am  here  in  the  centre  of  fetes,  princesses,  illumina- 
tions, spectacles.  Two  of  my  windows  face  the  ballroom, 
the  other  two  front  the  theatre.  Amidst  this  clatter  I  am 
in  a  perfect  solitude.  I  sit  and  muse  on  the  shore  of  the 
ocean.  I  go  over  all  the  sad  and  joyous  circumstances  of 
my  life.  I  hope  you  will  be  more  happy  than  I  have 
been." 

It  is  certainly  a  potent  neutralization  for  the  gnawings 
of  envy  and  depression  to  know  that  the  pluckers  of  the 
great  prizes  and  the  occupiers  of  the  great  seats  in  the 
eyes  of  the  world  are  not  the  happiest  men, — in  truth  are 
generally  the  least  happy  men.  The  common  multitude, 
who  cannot  conquer  in  the  arena  of  social  rivalry,  should 
therefore  contentedly  stand  aside  from  the  struggle,  and 
either  admire  or  pity  the  victors,  never  hate  or  envy  them. 
Pope  Adrian  the  Fourth,  in  his  Philosophical  Trifles, 
says  :  "  I  know  no  person  more  unhappy  than  the  Sov- 
ereign Pontiff.  Labor  alone,  were  that  his  only  evil, 
would  destroy  him  in  a  short  time.  His  seat  is  full  of 
thorns,  his  robe  stuck  with  points,  and  overwhelmingly 
heavy.  His  crown  and  tiara  shine,  but  it  is  with  a  fire 
that  will  consume  him.  I  have  risen  by  degrees  from  the 
lowest  to  the  highest  dignity  in  this  world,  and  have  never 
found  that  any  of  these  elevations  made  the  least  ad- 
dition to  my  happiness.  On  the  contrary,  I  feel  it  impos- 
sible to  bear  the  load  with  which  I  am  charged."  The 
close  of  the  life  of  Aristotle,  in  a  very  different  sphere, 
enforces  the  same  moral.  This  prince  of  all  true  think- 
ers, loaded  with  immortal  glory,  was  compelled  to  flee 


THE   USES   OF    SOLITUDE.  167 

suddenly  and  by  stealth  to  Chalcis,  in  order  to  save  his 
life,  and  spare,  as  he  said,  the  Athenians  a  new  crime 
against  philosophy.  There,  it  is  believed,  this  great  man, 
in -his  old  age,  wearied  with  persecution,  poisoned  himself. 
The  venerable  Hildebrand,  the  greatest  of  all  the  Popes, 
after  the  herculean  labors  of  his  self-devoted  and  mighty 
career,  crushed  by  an  accumulation  of  hardships,  said  : 
"  I  have  loved  justice  and  hated  iniquity ;  therefore  I  die 
in  exile."  It  is  impossible  to  ascribe  a  slight  importance 
to  the  moral  lesson  taught  by  the  consenting  sighs  of  so 
many  of  the  masters  of  the  world. 

The  greatest  men  —  creators  of  philosophies,  founders 
of  religions,  conquerors  of  nations  —  have  ever  been  fond 
of  a  certain  remoteness  and  privacy,  —  cultivators  of  soli- 
tude. Thus  they  have  walled  about  their  mysterious 
personality,  clothed  themselves  with  an  alluring  prestige 
which  the  curiosity  of  the  crowd  constantly  sought,  but 
was  never  permitted,  to  break  into.  Such  men  neu- 
tralize the  sorrowfulness  of  their  isolation  by  feeling  that 
if  they  are  alone,  it  is  because  they  are  so  high ;  also 
that  it  is  their  own  choice,  since  they  could  easily  stoop 
if  it  so  pleased  them.  But  they  will  not  cast  off  their 
wondrous  prerogatives.  Who  would  not  gladly  have  the 
celestial  fire  in  his  breast,  even  if  it  does  sometimes  "pain 
him  with  its  burning "  ?  How  much  feeling  there  is  in 
these  words  of  Michael  Angelo  !  — 

That  which  the  good  and  great 
So  often  from  the  insensate  world  may  meet, 
That  evil  guerdon  did  our  Dante  find. 
But  gladly  would  I,  to  be  such  as  he, 
For  his  hard  exile  and  calamity 
Forego  the  happiest  fortunes  of  mankind. 

And  the  spirit  of  the  gifted  man  often  commands  royal 
society  when  to  the  spectator's  eye  he  is  most  deserted. 
Musing  on  the  tracks  and  signals  of  his  great  predeces- 
sors he  loves  them  wonderfully  well.  As  he  goes  on  his 
way  alone,  his  pent-up  walk 

Widens  beyond  the  circles  of  the  stars, 
And  all  the  sceptred  spirits  of  the  past 
Come  thronging  in  to  greet  him  as  their  peer. 


l68  THE   MORALS    OF    SOLITUDE. 

The  selectest  privilege  of  solitude,  its  most  delicious 
charm,  is  liberty.  Schopenhauer  says,  "  Who  does  not 
love  solitude,  loves  not  freedom ;  for'  constraint  is  the 
inseparable  consort  of  society."  It  was  their  morbid  dis- 
like to  obey  the  becks  and  whims  of  others,  conform  to 
that  average  sympathy  which  is  the  rule  of  conventional 
breeding,  which  made  Petrarch  and  Rousseau  such  lovers 
of  solitude.  The  spirit  of  moral  liberty  dwells  in  solitude. 
As  her  votaries  approach  her  altar  there,  all  external  con- 
straint is  gone.  We  are  free.  We  shed  our  stiff  awkward- 
ness, every  fatiguing  posture,  reserve,  and  grimace,  draw 
a  long  sigh  of  delightful  relief,  and  feel  through  all  our 
powers  the  luxurious  flexibility  and  naturalness  of  a  perfect 
ease.  To  be  alone  is  to  be  free  to  act  unconstrainedly ; 
and  in  a  world  of  artificialities  this  is  a  happiness  rarely  to 
be  enjoyed  elsewhere.  Escaping  from  the  little  interests, 
little  passions,  vexatious  restraints  of  society  into  solitude, 
we  seem  to  recover  a  lost  good  once  native  to  us.  The 
innumerable  impressions  of  aboriginal  freedom,  of  un- 
tamed nature,  accumulated  in  the  ancestral  organisms 
whose  experiences  dimly  vibrate  in  our  own,  constitute  a 
basis  for  many  weird  reactions.  In  each  of  us  the  wild 
man  sleeps  at  the  bottom  of  every  drop  of  blood ;  and  in 
many  an  emotion,  strangely  vague  and  strong,  he  rises 
into  consciousness.  To  the  overtasked  citizen  of  a  fever- 
ish and  suspicious  society,  weary,  uneasy,  ambitious,  what 
an  irresistible  sense  of  relief,  refreshment,  and  enchanted 
liberty,  there  is  in  the  thought  of  exchanging  hot  drawing- 
rooms  and  noisy  thoroughfares  for  such  a  scene  as  the  trav- 
eller describes  in  the  Bay  of  Seven  Islands,  in  the  virgin 
remoteness  of  cool  Labrador !  "  The  magnificent  sandy 
beach  of  the  east  side  of  the  bay,  with  its  fringe  of  beau- 
tiful white  and  balsam  spruce,  forming  the  boundary  of 
the  forest  which  covers  the  flat  country  in  the  rear,  is  a 
fine  camp-ground,  ample  enough  for  ten  thousand  Indian 
lodges.  On  a  summer  day,  with  a  gentle  breeze  blowing, 
it  becomes  a  delightful  but  very  lonely  lounge  :  and  with 
the  sea  in  front,  the  calm  bay  at  your  feet,  the  silent 
forest  just  behind,  backed  by  the  everlasting  hills,  which, 
inconceivably  desolate  and  wild,  stretch  f)r  a  thousand 


THE   USES   OF   SOLITUDE.  169 

miles  towards  the  west,  it  is  a  fit  spot  for  old  memories 
to  renew  themselves,  old  sorrows  to  break  out  afresh." 

Happy  is  he  who,  free  from  the  iron  visages  that  hurt 
him  as  they  pass  in  the  street,  free  from  the  vapid  smiles 
Jind  sneers  of  frivolous  people,  draws  his  sufficingness 
from  inexhaustible  sources  always  at  his  command  when 
he  is  alone.  Blest  is  he  who,  when  disappointed,  can  turn 
from  the  affectations  of  an  empty  world  and  find  solace  in 
the  generous  sincerities  of  a  full  heart.  To  roam  apart 
beside  the  tinkling  rill,  to  crouch  in  the  grass  where  the 
crocus  grows,  to  lie  amid  the  clover  where  the  honey-bee 
hums,  gaze  off  into  the  still  deeps  of  summer  blue,  and  feel 
that  your  harmless  life  is  gliding  over  the  field  of  time  as 
noiselessly  as  the  shadow  of  a  cloud ;  or,  snuggled  in  furs, 
to  trudge  through  the  drifts  amidst  the  unspotted  scenery 
of  winter,  when  Storm  unfurls  his  dark  banner  in  the  sky, 
and  Snow  has  camped  on  the  hills  and  clad  every  stone 
and  twig  with  his  ermine,  is  pleasure  surpassing  any  to 
be  won  in  shallowly  consorting  with  mobs  of  men.  If 
you  are  so  favored  as  to  have  a  friend,  worthy  the  name, 
whose  eye  brightens  and  whose  heart  replenishes  yours, 
in  whose  nature  you  find  the  complement  and  touch  the 
equilibrium  of  your  own,  that  is  a  very  different  affair. 
Exception  is  to  be  made  in  such  a  case.  Every  man  with 
a  healthy  heart  will  endorse  the  charming  thought  of 
La  Bruyere,  thus  versified  by  Cowper  in  his  excellent 
poem,  "  Retirement." 

I  praise  the  Frenchman,  his  remark  was  shrewd, — 
How  sweet,  how  passing  sweet  is  solitude  ! 
But  grant  me  still  a  friend  in  my  retreat, 
Whom  I  may  whisper,  Solitude  is  sweet. 

Whoever  is  fond  of  receiving  great  impressions,  expan- 
sive exaltations  of  consciousness,  cannot  fail  to  be  irked 
and  galled  by  the  littlenesses  and  the  festering  jealousies 
of  the  crowd.  Like  Daniel  Boone,  he  will  gasp  for  breath 
within  the  conventionalities  of  society,  and  with  a  sigh 
of  boundless  relief  rush  to  the  wildernesses  of  nature  and 
lonely  thought,  throwing  his  soul  open  to  the  fresh  fellow- 
ship of  field,  forest,  mountain,  stream  and  star.  The 
praised,  aspiring  Maurice  de  Gue'rin  writes  in  his  journal ; 
8 


170  THE    MCRALS   OF   SOLITUDE. 

"  The  longer  I  live  and  the  clearer  I  discern  between 
true  and  false  in  society,  the  more  does  the  inclination  to 
live,  not  as  a  savage  or  a  misanthrope,  but  as  a  solitary 
man  on  the  frontiers  of  society,  on  the  outskirts  of  the 
world,  gain  strength  and  grow  in  me.  The  birds  come 
and  go,  and  make  nests  around  our  habitations,  they  are 
fellow-citizens  of  our 'farms  and  hamlets  with  us;  but 
they  take  their  flight  in  a  heaven  which  is  boundless,  but 
the  hand  of  God  alone  measures  to  them  their  daily  food, 
but  they  build  their  nests  in  the  heart  of  the  thick  bushes, 
or  hang  them  in  the  height  of  the  trees.  So  would  I,  too, 
live,  hovering  round  society,  and  having  always  at  my 
back  a  field  of  liberty  vast  as  the  sky." 

A  precious  prerogative  of  retirement  and  stillness  is  the 
rejuvenation  of  the  soul,  the  sentiments,  the  ideal  faculties, 
when  years  have  heaped  their  scars  and  burdens  on  us, 
when  cares  and  sorrows  have  depressed  our  energies  and 
undermined  our  hearts  with  gnawing  distrusts.  In  the 
company  of  others  we  are  reminded  of  our  rebuffs,  our 
disappointments,  our  age.  But  in  solitude  the  shames  of 
memory  are  flung  off,  no  fear  of  ridicule  represses  imagi- 
nation and  affection.  We  spread  our  wings  there,  and  soar 
with  the  old  joy  we  knew  when  we  were  young  and  credu- 
lous. This  profitable  delight  is  strikingly  described  in  the 
following  passage  by  Leopardi,  one  of  the  loneliest  of  men, 
who  knew  full  well  that  whereof  he  wrote  when  he  penned 
it :  "  The  habit  of  soliloquy  is  so  confirmed  from  day  to 
day  that  when  restored  to  intercourse  with  men  its  subject 
feels  himself  less  occupied  in  their  society  than  in  solitude. 
And  I  do  not  think  that  this  companionship  with  self  is 
confined  to  men  used  to  meditation,  but  that  it  comes 
more  or  less  to  all.  And  more  to  be  separated  from  men, 
and,  so  to  speak,  from  life  itself,  is  useful.  For  man,  — 
even  when  wise,  enlightened,  and  disenchanted  by  expe- 
rience of  all  human  things,  —  accustoms  himself  to  admire 
them  again  from  a  distance,  whence  they  appear  much 
more  beautiful  and  worthy  than  close  at  hand  ;  forgets 
their  vanity  and  misery  ;  begins  to  form  himself  anew,  and 
almost  to  recreate  the  world  to  his  liking ;  to  appreciate, 
love,  and  desire  life ;  and  with  these  hopes,  ii  he  is  not 


THE   USES   OF   SOLITUDE.  1 71 

entirely  deprived  of  the  expectation  of  restoring  himself 
to  the  society  of  men,  nourishes  and  delights  himself  as 
he  was  wont  to  do  in  his  early  years.  In  this  way  solitude 
almost  fulfils  the  office  of  youth.  It  makes  the  soul  young 
again,  restores  the  power  and  activity  of  imagination,  and 
renews  in  the  man  of  experience  the  blessings  of  his  first 
inexperience." 

One  of  the  uses  of  solitude  is  preparation  for  death. 
Schopenhauer  said,  "  My  solitary  life  has  prepared  me 
better  than  most  men  for  the  lonely  business  of  dying." 
It  is  a  terrible  pain  to  imagine  ourselves  absolutely  cut  off 
from  sympathy  with  our  fellow-men.  Under  the  premo- 
nition of  so  fatal  a  loss  the  soul  feels  as  if  it  were  fainting 
away  into  infinite  vacancy.  Chaucer  describes  Arcite 
going  away  from  his  heart's  queen,  Emily,  to  be 

In  his  cold  grave 
Alone,  withouten  any  company. 

To  our  natural  instincts  this  is,  perhaps,  the  deepesc 
meaning  of  death,  —  to  be  thus  darkly  and  utterly  sun- 
dered from  our  kind.  To  rehearse  the  act  in  idea  robs  it 
of  its  terror,  and  of  some  of  its  dismalness,  by  familiariz- 
ing us  with  it  It  is  a  bracing  moral  regimen,  an  exercise 
helping  us  toward  a  free  personal  detachment,  often  to 
fling  ourselves  forward  in  imagination  to  the  time  when 
thousands  of  men  will  be  merry  with  their  wives,  children, 
and  friends,  laughing  over  their  nuts  and  wine,  while  we 
shall  be  "walking  alone  along  the  lampless  and  frozen 
ways  of  death."  Separated  from  men  by  a  secluded  life, 
it  is  easier  for  us  to  wean  ourselves  from  the  thought  and 
love  of  all  that  society  which  death  will  end.  Lacordaire 
wrote  from  his  retreat  at  Soreze  to  his  friend,  Madame 
Swetchine,  "  Every  day  they  announce  to  me,  on  the  part 
of  those  I  have  formerly  known,  rejections  of  opinion  and 
changes  of  front,  which  give  me  the  vertigo.  O,  how 
happy  I  am  in  being  far  from  the  spectacle !  God  in 
giving  me  this  solitude  has  fivefold  rewarded  the  labors 
of  my  life,  and  I  ask  Him  for  only  one  thing  more, 
death ! " 

Common  natures  in  their  social  relations  suffer  most 


172  1HE   MORALS   OF   SOLITUDE. 

from  want  of  objects  to  reciprocate  their  manifestations 
of  affection,  and  thus  pacify  the  hunger  of  their  hearts. 
Baffled  in  this  natural  quest  they  pine.  The  remedy  foi 
such  wounds  is  magnanimity.  There  is  no  escape  in 
recoil;  there  is  cure  in  self-forgetfulness.  Be  willing  to 
love  and  serve  without  noticing  whether  there  is  appreci- 
ative return  or  not.  This  is  a  magical  balsam  for  the 
bruises  of  self-love.  It  can  even  carry  the  peace  of  soli- 
tude into  the  heat  and  laceration  of  society.  The  folly 
of  asceticism  makes  self-denial,  the  wisdom  of  morality 
makes  self-subjection,  the  law  of  man.  To  live  in  the  life 
and  feel  the  good  of  all,  we  need  not  to  renounce,  but  only 
to  rule,  our  own. 

The  divinest  souls,  yearning  abroad  among  their  kind, 
chiefly  feel  the  need,  not  of  a  return  for  wha't  they  give, 
but  of  objects  to  lavish  their  exuberant  tenderness  on 
So  copiously  furnished,  they  ask  not  a  supply  but  a  vent. 
This  is  seen  in  the  examples  of  the  highest  characters  of 
history.  They  accept  their  lot  serenely,  contented  to  im- 
part alone  so  long  as  not  thwarted  in  that.  The  truly 
great  man  remembers  that  ordinary  men  come  to  him  as 
they  go  to  a  fountain,  "  not  to  admire  its  stream,  though 
clear  as  crystal,  but  to  fill  their  pitchers."  When  kept 
from  bestowing,  however,  there  must  be  profound  anguish, 
as  is  shown  in  the  experience  of  Jesus,  in  that  cry  of 
transcendent  pathos,  "  O  Jerusalem,  Jerusalem,  thou  that 
killest  the  prophets  and  stonest  them  which  are  sent  unto 
thee,  how  often  would  I  have  gathered  thy  children  to 
gether,  even  as  a  hen  gathereth  her  chickens  under  her 
wings,  and  ye  would  not !  "  Then  there  is  one  resource, 
and  no  more.  Its  secret  breathes  in  the  sublime  declara- 
tion, "  And  yet  I  am  not  alone,  for  the  Father  is  with  me." 
Simply  to  relieve  the  heart  we  continue  to  sigh  long  after 
we' have  abandoned  all  hope  of  a  response,  as  the  gray 
bird  perched  on  the  tree-top  sings  his  lonely  plaint  al- 
though the  silence  of  the  woods  brings  him  no  answer. 
But  profoundly  beneath  all  conscious  recognition  we  feel 
that  there  is  an  invisible  auditor,  God,  who  marks  every 
pang,  understands  our.  love,  sympathizes  with  our  strug- 
gles and  tears. 


THE    USES   OF    SOLITUDE.  J  73 

With  what  do  we  wish  to  live  most  neighborly  ?  Not 
with  beings  merely  fashioned  in  our  form.  No  ;  but  with 
the  forces  that  feed  our  noblest  life.  Primarily,  with  the 
intimate  Divinity  who  inspires,  commands,  and  loves  us, 
and  secondarily,  with  the  persons  who,  serving  his  pur- 
poses as  we  ought  to,  may  help  us  by  their  example  and 
fellowship  to  do  the  same.  And  surely  it  is  often  true 
that  these  are  nearer  to  us  and  more  communicative  when 
we  are  alone  than  when  we  are  in  company. 

O  lost  to  virtue,  lost  to  manly  thought, 
Lost  to  the  noble  sallies  of  the  soul, 
Who  think  it  solitude  to  be  alone  ! 
Communion  sweet,  communion  large  and  high, 
Our  reason,  guardian  angel,  and  our  God  ! 
Then  nearest  these  when  others  most  remote, 
And  all,  ere  long,  shall  be  remote  but  these. 

Earnestness  feels  the  contact  of  indifference  as  a  prof- 
anation. The  deeper  and  richer  that  earnestness  is,  the 
more  grateful  and  sufficing  solitude  becomes.  Brood- 
ing over  and  pursuing  its  own  purposes  it  is  an  inexhaust- 
ible source  of  true  delights.  But  without  a  dedicated 
spiritual  life  within,  loneliness  is  a  famine  breeding  death. 
What  moral  profit  did  the  solitude  of  their  cave  adminis- 
ter to  the  Seven  Sleepers  of  Ephesus  ?  Yet  the  natural 
affinity  of  aspiration  and  wisdom  for  retirement  is  clear 
to  every  observer.  If  you  saw  two  persons  intently  read- 
ing, and,  looking  over  their  shoulders,  found  that  one  was 
absorbed  in  Lola  Montez  on  the  "Arts  of  the  Toilet,"  the 
other  in  Saint  Bruno  on  the  "  Delights  of  Solitude,"  you 
would  infer  a  great  difference  in  their  respective  charac- 
ters, —  a  difference  of  mental  dignity  decidedly  to  the 
advantage  of  the  latter.  Most  men  live  blindly  to  repeat 
a  routine  of  drudgery  and  indulgence,  without  any  delib- 
erately chosen  and  maintained  aims.  Many  live  to  out- 
strip their  rivals,  pursue  their  enemies,  gratify  their  lusts, 
and  make  a  display.  Eew  live  distinctly  to  develop  the 
value  of  their  being,  know  the  truth,  love  their  fellows, 
enjoy  the  beauty  of  the  world,  and  aspire  to  God.  Why 
are  not  more  persuaded  to  join  this  select  class  ?  The 
first  condition  of  desiring  it  is  the  removal  of  vice,  shal- 


174  THE   MORALS   OF   SOLITUDE. 

lowness,  distraction,  and  indifference  ;  and  for  this  the 
regimen  of  solitude,  in  some  form,  is  indispensable. 

Spirituality  did  ever  choose  loneliness.  For  there  the 
tar,  the  departed,  the  loved,  the  unseen,  the  divine,  throng 
freely  in,  and  there  is  no  let  or  hindrance  to  the  desires 
of  our  souls.  Memory,  the  glass  in  which  we  gaze  on  the 
absent,  is  called  into  requisition  least  where  the  present 
are  thickest.  Solitude  is  our  trysting-place  with  the  dead. 
God  be  thanked  no  earthly  power  can  close  that  retreat 
or  bar  us  from  the  sinless  fellowship  it  holds.  There, 
whenever  I  turn  to  the  past,  comes  to  meet  me  the  moth- 
er —  too  delicate  for  this  harsh  world  —  who  died  so 
young,  or  ever  I  knew  to  give  her  the  love  she  needed. 
There  the  bright  and  beautiful  little  brother,  who  followed 
her  so  soon  into  the  darkness,  with  his  masses  of  golden 
curls,  his  deep  eyes,  his  winsome  ways.  There  the  trans- 
figured boys  and  girls,  friendly  playmates  of  my  unpol- 
luted years,  whom  the  Angel  bore  away  and  embalmed 
forever,  before  time  could  dim  the  glory  on  their  brows  or 
mix  one  adulterating  ingredient  with  their  ingenuous 
affections.  There,  too,  the  beloved  youth,  my  eldest 
born,  so  good  and  true,  just  treading  in  the  Castalian 
dew  and  flowers  when  wrapt  in  the  sable  fold  of  eternity. 
And  close  by  him,  snatched  away  in  the  same  week,  the 
darling  daughter,  sweet  prattler,  the  youngest  born,  whose 
life  was  a  brief  frolic  of  beauty,  innocence,  and  joy ;  the 
little  angel,  who  but  flew  from  God  to  God  across  my 
path.  Ah,  how  it  makes  the  heart  ache  to  remember 
that  such  things  were  and  are  not!  But  that  ache  is 
welcome,  as  a  signal  of  the  deeper  life  prophetic  of  its 
own  future  ease.  And  never  will  I  refuse  the  still  invi- 
tation to  the  tryst  of  the  dead. 

There  are  some  lines  in  the  sombre  and  jagged  but 
powerful  poem  of  an  author  whom  it  is  now  the  fashion 
to  underrate,  which  may  serve  to  conclude  these  reflec- 
tions on  the  uses  of  solitude.  Young  says  of  the  dark 
solitude  of  night,  that  it 

Is  the  kind  hand  of  Providence  stretcht  out 
Twixt  man  and  vanity  :  't  is  reason's  reign, 
And  virtue's  too  ;  its  tutelary  shades 
Are  man's  asylum  from  the  tainted  throng. 


THE   USES    OF    SOLITUDE.  1 75 

The  world's  infectious  ;  few  bring  back  at  eve, 

Immaculate,  the  manners  of  the  morn. 

Something  we  thought,  is  blotted ;  we  resolved, 

Is  shaken  ;  we  renounced,  returns  again. 

Nor  is  it  strange  :  light,  motion,  concourse,  noise, 

All  scatter  us  abroad  ;  thought,  outward  bound. 

Neglectful  of  our  home  affairs,  flies  off, 

And  leaves  the  breast  unguarded  to  the  foe. 

Ambition  fires  ambition ;  love  of  gain 

Strikes  like  a  pestilence  from  breast  to  breast; 

Riot,  pride,  perfidy,  blue  vapors  breathe  ; 

And  inhumanity  is  caught  from  man, 

From  smiling  man.     A  slight,  a  single  glance, 

And  shot  at  random,  often  has  brought  home 

A  sudden  fever  to  the  throbbing  heart, 

Of  envy,  rancor,  or  impure  desire. 

We  see,  we  hear,  with  peril ;  safety  dwells 

Remote  from  multitude  ;  the  world 's  a  school 

Of  wrong,  and  what  proficients  swarm  around ! 

We  must  or  imitate  or  disapprove ; 

Must  list  as  their  accomplices  or  foes  ; 

That  stains  our  innocence ;  this  wounds  our  peace. 

From  nature's  birth,  hence,  wisdom  has  been  smit 

With  sweet  recess,  and  languished  for  the  shade. 

This  sacred  shade  and  solitude,  what  is  it  ? 

'T  is  the  felt  presence  of  the  Deity. 

Few  are  the  faults  we  flatter  when  alone. 

It  is  worth  much  time  and  study  to  understand  all  the 
varieties  of  loneliness,  from  that  of  the  dying  savage 
writhing  on  the  ground  under  the  sky,  to  that  of  the  rahat, 
or  Buddhist  saint,  hovering  on  the  verge  of  Nirwana. 
There  are  two  fearful  specifications  of  the  historic  lone- 
liness in  human  life  which  will  load  with  pain  every 
sympathetic  heart  that  ponders  them.  The  social  lone- 
liness of  the  Galleys  is  one.  Who  can  appreciate  the 
awful  mass  of  unshared  agony,  shrinking  apart,  and  deadly 
languishment  caused  by  that  barbaric  penalty  which  com- 
bined in  one  overwhelming  woe  the  collected  horrors  of 
exile,  foul  degradation,  physical  hardship,  and  hopeless- 
ness ?  The  individual  loneliness  of  imprisonment  is  the 
other.  In  connection  with  every  royal  house,  every  ruling 
priesthood,  in  all  civilized  lands,  there  have  been  political 
and  ecclesiastical  prisons.  And  these  prisons  have  never 
long  been  empty.  Their  dumb  dungeons  have  been 
crowded  with  noble  or  criminal  aspirants  —  with  bards, 


176  THE   MORALS   OF   SOLITUDE. 

patriots,  thinkers,  divine  champions  —  whose  thoughts 
went  out  to  free  and  strengthen  the  world,  whose  souls 
exhaled  into  eternity  through  their  dark  bars.  The  gen 
erous  reformers  and  heretics,  kings,  high  adventurers, 
artists,  inventors,  —  from  Joseph  in  Egypt  to  Kossuth  in 
Austria,  —  from  Paul  in  Rome  to  Raleigh  in  London,  — 
from  Tasso  to  Lovelace,  —  from  Hebrew  Daniel  to  Bohe- 
mian Huss,  —  would  form  a  list  of  names  of  extraordinary 
interest.  The  list  would  be  one  of  portentous  length. 
And  who  but  would  sigh  to  think  that  all  these  have  lain 
under  chains,  in  dismal  cells,  utterly  cut  off  from  friendly 
contact  with  mankind,  feeling  the  bitter  weight  and  lone- 
liness" of  their  fate  until  every  one  of  them  breathed  the 
Psalmist's  petition,  "  Lord,  lead  my  soul  out  of  prison  ! " 

It  is  no  contemptible  feat  to  appreciate  the  causes  and 
characteristics  of  all  the  kinds  of  isolation  out  of  the  aver- 
age community  of  human  life,  higher  and  lower,  —  from 
the  stealthy  solitude  of  smugglers  unloading  their  boat 
in  a  retired  cove,  while  sea  and  gale  roar  together,  and 
fitful  clouds  drift  over,  and  the  stars  shine  dimly  through 
the  rifts,  —  to  the  holy  solitude  of  vestals  who  celebrate 
their  devotions,  an  ocean  of  crime  and  wretchedness,  shut 
out,  surging  around  their  walls,  while  starlight  and  torch- 
light kiss  in  the  storied  windows,  and  the  organ  peals  its 
triumphant  notes  from  the  choir,  and  the  plaintive  strains 
of  the  penitential  hymn  die  along  aisle  and  arch. 

But  it  is  especially  grand  and  strengthening  to  know 
the  great  lonely  personalities  of  the  past ;  to  be  sympa- 
thetically caught  up  to  the  height  where  they  stand,  out- 
lined against  infinitude  and  eternity ;  to  be  acquainted 
with  them  as  they  were  in  their  glory  and  their  gloom, 
their  grandeur  and  their  grief.  For,  vast  as  were  their 
gifts  and  their  strange  joys,  many  times  through  the  most 
authentic  utterance  of  their  experience 

There  sobs  I  know  not  what  ground  tone 
Of  human  agony. 

This  is  true  of  them  all,  whether  it  be  Moses,  composing 
his  mournful  psalm  in  the  desert;  Plato,  twice  imprisoned, 
once  sold  as  a  slave,  forced  to  teach  his  deepest  and  dear- 


THE   USES    OF   SOLITUDE.  177 

est  thoughts  under  an  esoteric  veil ;  Empedocles,  musing 
over  his  doubts  upon  Etna ;  Tacitus,  in  the  midst  of  de- 
caying Rome,  wrapt  in  the  hermit-robe  of  his  individual- 
ity, painting  those  sombre  and  Titanic  pictures  of  crime 
and  ruin  ;  Dante,  slowly  crystallizing  the  singular  force 
and  tenderness  of  his  genius  in  a  fabric  of  immortal 
verse  with  the  stores  of  his  learning  and  all  the  pangs  his 
afflicted  spirit  knew ;  Bacon,  bequeathing  his  fame  to 
his  countrymen  "when  some  time  be  past";  Pascal,  sigh- 
ing from  his  cell  at  Port  Royal,  "  Man  is  so  unhappy  that 
he  is  weary  without  any  cause  for  weariness "  ;  Shake- 
speare, overflowing  in  the  soliloquy  of  his  sonnets,  the 
dense  obscurity  that  shrouds  his  life  so  indicative  of  its 
loneliness  ;  Kant,  pacing  the  limits  of  his  iron  logic-cas- 
tle, or  writing  in  his  memorandum-book  a  little  before  his 
death,  with  reference  to  that  month  being  the  shortest 
in  the  year,  "  O  happy  February !  in  which  man  has  least 
to  bear,  —  least  pain,  least  sorrow,  least  self-reproach  "  ; 
Schleiermacher,  passionately  breathing  his  Monologues  ; 
Mazzini,  venting  the  fiery  sadness  of  a  prophet-heart  in 
his  exile-addresses  ;  or  Rothe,  immured  in  the  colossal 
system  of  ethics  his  architectural  faith  and  reason  have 
built  for  his  unshared  residence.  Such  men  as  these, 
and  their  sparse  peers,  form  no  social  groups ;  but,  far- 
scattered  in  time  and  space,  each  one  is  "  as  alone  as 
Lyra  in  the  sky."  They  are,  in  a  sense,  mediators  be- 
tween God  and  the  crowd.  They  lift  the  gaze  of  their 
species.  Above  their  separated  epochs  and  lands,  each 
on  his  own  throne,  Vyasa,  Zoroaster,  Gotama,  Confucius, 
Pythagoras,  Caesar,  Newton,  Goethe,  Swedenborg,  and 
the  rest,  —  poets,  heroes,  saints,  philosophers,  —  radiant 
victors  over  sloth  and  sin  and  error  and  all  the  blind 
tyrannous  brood  of  misery,  —  they  afford  to  lower  men 
at  once  example  and  inspiration,  goal  and  guidance.  He 
who  has  elevated  himself  into  real  fellowship  with  these 
solitary  heads  of  great  men,  rising  at  wide  intervals 
above  the  herd  of  common  names,  eternal  conquerors 
of  the  oblivion  which  has  made  the  rest  its  prey,  need 
ask  no  other  testimony  to  his  achievements,  no  ( ther 
reward  of  his  toils  and  sorrows. 

8*  L 


178  THE   MORALS   OF   SOLITUDE. 

At  the  top  of  his  mind  the  devout  scholai  has  a  holy 
of  holies,  a  little  pantheon  set  around  with  altars  and  the 
images  of  the  greatest  men.  Every  day,  putting  on  a 
priestly  robe,  he  retires  into  this  temple  and  passes  before 
its  shrines  and  shapes.  Here,  he  feels  a  thrill  of  awe ; 
there,  he  lays  a  burning  aspiration  ;  further  on,  he  swings 
a  censer  of  reverence.  To  one,  he  lifts  a  look  of  love ; 
at  the  feet  of  another,  he  drops  a  grateful  tear ;  and  before 
another  still,  a  flush  of  pride  and  joy  suffuses  him.  They 
smile  on  him :  sometimes  they  speak  and  wave  their  solemn 
hands.  Always  they  look  up  to  the  Highest.  Purified 
and  hallowed,  he  gathers  his  soul  together,  and  comes 
away  from  the  worshipful  intercourse,  serious,  serene,  glad, 
and  strong. 

Conclusion. 

SINCE,  in  the  particular  tendencies  of  the  present  time, 
our  weakness  lies  in  the  direction  of  a  gregarious  miscel- 
lany and  loquacity  of  life,  instead  of  an  undue  seclusion, 
it  behooves  us  to  court,  rather  than  to  repulse,  solitude. 
Innocence  is  better  than  eloquence,  self-sufficingness  a 
costlier  prize  than  social  conquest,  self-denial  and  oblivion 
an  aim  of  diviner  sweetness  and  height  than  self-assertion 
and  display.  A  holy  man  may  well  rejoice  to  be  delivered 
by  obscurity  from  the  blame  and  praise  of  the  world,  glid- 
ing unnoticed  to  his  end  like  a  still  rivulet  under  the  grass 
in  some  sequestered  vale.  But  few  in  our  days  sincerelv 
wish  this.  And  yet  it  were  wisdom  and  religion  to  covet 
it,  and  slay  our  deadly  foes,  lust  and  vanity,  with  the 
bright  weapons  of  the  saint,  renunciation  and  faith. 

Opinion  is  the  rate  of  things, 
By  which  our  peace  doth  flow ; 
We  have  a  better  fate  than  kings, 
If  we  but  think'  it  so. 

Make  we  then  frequent  withdrawals  into  meditative  lone- 
liness and  silence.  And  with  reference  to  this  let  us  re- 
member what  Marcus  Antoninus  so  well  says  :  "  Nowhere 
either  with  more  quiet  or  more  freedom  from  trouble  does 


CONCLUSION.  1 79 

a  man  retire  than  into  his  own  soul,  particularly  when  he 
has  within  him  such  thoughts  that  by  looking  into  them 
he  is  immediately  in  perfect  tranquillity.  Constantly  then, 
give  to  thyself  this  retreat,  and  renew  thyself;  and  let 
thy  principles  be  brief  and  fundamental,  which,  as  soon 
as  thou  shalt  recur  to  them,  will  be  sufficient  to  cleanse 
the  soul  completely,  and  to  send  thee  back  free  from  all 
discontent  with  the  things  to  which  thou  returnest." 

There  is,  therefore,  for  the  tonic  discipline  or  the  re- 
pose of  solitude,  no  need  of  going  to -any  remote  hermit- 
age. The  game  of  solitaire  may  be  played  as  effectually 
in  the  drawing-room  or  on  the  sidewalk  as  in  cell  or 
desert. 

There  needs  no  guards  in  front  and  rear  to  keep  the  crowd  away ; 
Superior  height  of  life  and  soul  will  hold  them  all  at  bay. 

One  thought,  one  recollection,  one  emotion,  one  sigh,  — 
and  you  may  be  as  far  from  the  comrades  who  are  talking 
and  laughing  around  you,  as  though  mountain-ranges  in- 
tervened or  oceans  rolled  between.  In  any  company  let 
me  but  think,  Now,  soft  and  faint,  the  starlight  is  falling 
along  the  shattered  colonnades  of  Karnac,  —  and  I  am 
alone.  Let  me  glance  upward  where  the  ghostly  moon  is 
swimming  through  the  noontide  air,  —  and  I  am  alone. 
Let  fancy  go  forth  to  the  snow-laden  flanks  of  the  Alps, 
where  the  sombre  pine-ranks  are  waving  like  hearse- 
plumes  over  the  corse  of  nature,  —  and  I  am  alone.  Let 
a  dream  of  heaven  rise  in  imagination,  a  glimpse  of  the 
faces  of  the  unforgotten  dead  pass  before  the  mental  eye, 
a  sense  of  the  presence  of  God  rise  into  consciousness,  — 
and,  it  matters  not  where  the  place  is  or  how  many  noisy 
claimants  press  around,  I  am  instantly  and  unutterably 
alone. 

Even  if  we  wish  it  not  we  must  sometimes  be  alone. 
It  is  our  duty  to  see  to  it  that  we  are  prepared  to  be 
alone  profitably  and  cheerfully,  without  weariness  and 
without  fear.  The  difference  in  human  solitudes  is  im- 
mense. The  solitude  was  pleasing  which  Archimedes 
knew,  —  so  absorbingly  occupied  with  his  mathematical 
problems  as  to  be  unconscious  of  the  capture  of  his  Syra- 


lo  THE   MORALS   OF   SOLITUDE. 

cuse,  and  to  be  slain  by  the  Roman  soldiers  sooner  than 
forsake  his  fascinating  work.  But  how  painful,  to  a  man 
of  his  sensitive  warmth,  was  the  solitude  of  the  brave  and 
generous  Canning  in  his  premiership  at  the  close  of  his 
career,  —  too  proudly  refined  for  democratic  intimacies, 
cast  off  by  his  Tory  associates  on  account  of  his  liberal 
statesmanship,  idolized  by  thousands  who  could  not  per- 
sonally approach  him,  pitilessly  persecuted  by  his  sur- 
rounding enemies,  stung  at  every  pore,  at  once  slowly 
bleeding  and  freezing  to  death  on  the  height  of  his 
power.  The  loneliness  felt  by  the  subject  of  morbid 
superstition  and  terror  resembles  the  landscape  in  the 
gloomy  gorges  of  the  Grand  Chartreuse  ;  while  the  lone- 
liness felt  by  the  subject  of  healthy  faith  and  awe  before 
the  unknown  realities  of  being,  resembles  the  scene  on 
the  white  roof  of  the  Milan  Cathedral,  when  some  visitor, 
climbing  thither  by  moonlight  and  gazing  on  the  forest 
of  statues,  feels  as  though  a  flight  of  angels  had  alighted 
there  and  been  struck  to  marble.  We  cannot  always  live 
in  public.  There  are  secrets  and  moments  we  can  never 
share.  We  should  be  familiar  with  the  necessity,  and 
make  it  grateful.  We  should  cultivate  in  thought  its 
serene,  contentful  aspects,  and  guard  against  its  oppres 
sive,  fearful  aspects.  The  gifted  man,  isolated  in  pro- 
portion to  his  superiority,  if  needing  sympathy,  feels, 
Schopenhauer  strikingly  says,  as  though  men  had  for 
saken  him  ;  if  self-sufficing,  as  though  he  had  succeeded 
in  running  away  from  them.  What  a  contrast  of  misery 
and  blessedness  in  the  states  of  these  two  !  Who  is  it 
that  sits  on  the  world  as  lightly  as  a  gull  on  the  ocean, 
except  he  who  has  learned  by  solitary  thought  to  detach 
his  affections  from  the  prides  and  vanities  of  society,  and 
often  to  lose  himself  in  the  fruition  of  a  transcendent 
faith  ?  To  be  separated  by  ascetic  superstition  is  to 
know  the  loneliness  of  Arsenius,  who,  after  being  tutor 
to  the  Emperor  Arcadius,  went  into  the  desert,  and  for 
fifty  years  made  his  life  one  long  solitary  prayer.  To  be 
separated  by  the  remorseful  memory  of  crime,  is  to  know 
the  loneliness  of  Milo,  when  caught  by  the  fingers  in  the 
rebounding  oak  he  would  split,  and  left  as  a  prey  to  the 


CONCLUSION.  l8l 

wild  beasts.  To  be  separated  by  absorption  in  some 
sweet  care,  is  to  know  the  loneliness  of  Izaak  Walton 
trouting  in  a  secluded  glen.  To  the  guilty  and  debased 
soul  there  may  come  a  loneliness  like  the  solitude  of  a 
volcanic  peak,  full  of  boiling  lava  and  smoke.  To  the 
virtuous  and  trustful  soul  there  may  come  a  loneliness 
like  the  solitude  of  a  spring  in  the  desert,  where,  all  night 
long,  the  wild  children  of  nature  successively  slake  their 
thirst ;  the  fawn  and  the  panther,  the  lion  and  the  ele- 
phant, —  and  the  moon  comes  there,  sees  her  fair  face, 
and  departs  smiling. 

Die  away,  then,  vain  murmur  of  tongues  !  Retreat, 
hollow  hum  of  toils  and  cares !  Fade  out,  cold  proces- 
sion of  alien  faces  !  Begone,  fair  seductions,  that  excite, 
then  deceive  and  desert  your  victim  !  Cease  to  vex  any 
more  this  poor  brain  and  heart,  ye  restless  solicitations  to 
things  that  can  never  suffice,  and  that  perish  so  soon  1 
Disappear  all,  and  leave  me  awhile  alone,  with  my  soul 
and.  nature,  my  destiny  and  my  God  1 


SKETCHES    OF    LONELY    CHARACTERS 

OR, 

PERSONAL  ILLUSTRATIONS  OF  THE  GOOD 
AND  EVIL  OF  SOLITUDE. 


SKETCHES    OF    LONELY    CHARACTERS. 


BUDDHA. 

ABOUT  six  centuries  before  the  beginning  of  the  Chris- 
tion  era,  in  Kapilavastu,  a  royal  city  of  India,  the  Prince 
Gotama,  or  Sakya  Muni,  was  born  in  the  palace  of  King 
Suddhodarna,  lord  paramount  of  the  Aryan  race.  Heir 
to  the  regal  glories  of  the  house  of  the  sun,  brought  up  in 
a  powerful  and  splendid  court,  amidst  the  utmost  richness 
and  refinement  of  poetic  and  metaphysical  culture,  he 
was  profusely  supplied  with  all  that  could  gratify  the 
senses  or  develop  the  mind.  He  was  endowed  with 
surpassing  personal  beauty  and  with  the  noblest  traits  of 
character.  At  an  early  age  he  showed  such  extreme 
thoughtfulness  and  sympathy  that  his  teachers  foretold 
his  destiny  to  become  a  recluse.  The  king  took  every 
precaution  to  prevent  this  catastrophe.  But  in  vain. 
Fate  would  be  fulfilled. 

One  day,  while  riding  out,  he  saw  a  decrepit  old  man, 
half  bent  to  the  earth,  tottering  along  with  great  difficulty. 
Learning,  on  inquiry,  that  all  men  who  lived  to  a  great 
age  were  subject  to  these  infirmities,  the  prince  sorrow- 
fully meditated  for  a  long  time.  After  an  interval  he  met 
a  beggar  suffering  from  a  loathsome  disease.  This  spec- 
tacle of  sores  and  pains  brought  his  former  reflections 
back  in  double  intensity.  And  when,  a  few  months  later, 
he  happened  to  behold  a  dead  body  in  the  last  stages  of 
decay,  and  was  told  that  this  was  the  unavoidable  end  of 
all  men,  he  was  horrified  at  the  evils  of  existence.  The 
keenest  sense  of  the  vanity  of  worldly  pleasure  and  mag- 
nificence took  possession  of  him.  Melancholy  contem- 
plations on  the  ghastly  circle  of  birth,  growth,  decline, 


1 86  SKETCHES   OF   LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

disease,  death,  corruption,  constantly  occupied  his  soul. 
But  at  length,  in  one  of  his  excursions  beyond  the  palace, 
he  saw  a  hermit,  becomingly  clad  in  a  simple  robe,  walk- 
ing cheerfully  along  the  road  with  a  staff  and  almsdish, 
in  perfect  health,  with  a  serene  and  smiling  face.  The 
prince  asked  who  this  was.  And  being  told  that  it  was  a 
recluse,  who  by  religious  withdrawal  and  meditation  had 
freed  himself  from  the  cares  and  miseries  of  ordinary 
mortals,  he  at  once  matured  his  previous  ruminations  in 
an  indomitable  resolution  to  imitate  the  example  thus  set, 
detach  himself  from  bondage  to  the  disgusts  of  human 
existence  which  the  gorgeous  masks  of  his  station  had 
vainly  hidden,  and  try  to  discover  the  means  of  eternally 
delivering  himself  and  all  men. 

With  transcendent  strength  of  self-denial  he  fulfilled 
his  purpose  on  the  very  day  of  the  birth  of  his  first  child, 
when  the  whole  palace  and  city  were  ringing  with  festiv- 
ities. Pausing  on  the  threshold  of  the  room  where  the 
sleeping  mother  and  babe  lay  in  their  loveliness,  he  gazed 
on  them  a  moment,  then  turned  away,  forsook  without  a 
sigh  the  most  seductive  prizes  of  the  world,  and,  accom- 
panied by  a  single  servant,  whom  he  soon  dismissed, 
started  for  a  desolate  forest,  far  from  all  the  attractions 
and  distractions  of  his  former  experience.  What  a  pic- 
ture it  is  of  spiritual  prowess,  a  peerless  personality,  a 
divine  consecration,  and  an  inexpressible  mental  lone- 
liness, —  the  musing  Gotama,  only  twenty-nine  years  old, 
in  the  fragrant  bloom  of  his  royalty,  —  after  the  three 
sad  sights  of  helpless  age,  repulsive  sickness,  and  putres- 
cent  death,  and  the  pleasant  sight  of  the  happy  ascetic, 
—  stealing  away  from  queen  and  child  and  palace,  ex- 
changing the  diadem  and  golden  robe  for  the  alms-bowl 
and  clout,  and  sitting  down  under  the  bo-tree  in  the  deep 
woods  to  think  out  the  doctrine  of  salvation ! 

For  six  long  years  Gotama  persevered,  in  strict  seclu- 
sion from  the  world,  in  the  practice  of  all  known  austet- 
ities  for  reducing  the  flesh  to  its  lowest  influence,  and  arts 
for  raising  the  mind  to  its  grandest  power,  constantly 
striving  to  vanquish  every  selfish  desire,  every  earthly  at- 
tachment, and  achieve  a  knowledge  of  truth.  Astounding 


BUDDHA.  -87 

descriptions  are  given  of  the  penances  he  underwent,  the 
agonies  he  endured,  the  temptations  he  withstood,  the 
repeated  failures  he  experienced  before  his  final  victory. 
His  figure,  the  authority  he  acquired,  and  the  part  he 
played  in  subsequent  history  became  so  prodigious,  and 
the  imaginative  fertility  and  credulity  of  the  Asiatic  races 
were  so  teeming  and  unchecked,  that  it  would  have  been 
unnatural  if  he  had  not  been  surrounded  with  a  glittering 
cloud  of  supernatural  attributes  and  feats,  if  he  had  not 
been  obscured  under  masses  of  fictitious  marvels.  The 
deifying  wonder  that  has  wrought  on  the  biography  of 
Jesus,  the  collective  miracles  ascribed  to  him,  are  the 
merest  trifle  in  comparison  with  the  overwhelming  powers 
attributed  to  Buddha.  One  consequence  is  a  common 
doubt  whether  there  really  ever  was  such  a  person.  But 
the  doubt  is  not  valid.  The  soundest  historical  criticism 
must  admit  that  the  prince  and  sage,  Gotama  Buddha, 
once  lived,  and  that  we  possess,  enveloped  in  stupendous 
perversions  and  exaggerations,  a  trustworthy  knowledge 
of  his  life,  character,  doctrine,  and  influence.  Stripping 
off  the  mythical  accretion,  we  discern,  under  the  distor- 
tions of  the  miraculous,  the  unmistakable  indications  of 
the  natural  and  the  true.  Behind  the  grotesque  exagger- 
ations of  the  legendary  monstrosity,  we  trace  the  affecting 
features  of  a  genius  and  hero  of  the  most  exalted  order. 

Casting  away  the  sceptre  and  laurel,  retreating  into  the 
solitude  of  the  wilderness,  year  after  year  Gotama  main- 
tained his  pursuit  of  a  perfect  insight  and  emancipation, 
determined  never  to  falter  till  he  had  solved  the  problem 
of  existence.  He  had  grown  up  in  a  country  and  age 
where  innumerable  rival  sects,  both  in  philosophy  and 
religion,  lived  side  by  side,  with  universal  tolerance,  but 
engaged  in  keen  debate.  Hindu  faith  and  metaphysics, 
represented  by  masters  whose  comprehensiveness  and 
subtility  of  thinking  have  scarcely  been  surpassed,  in- 
cluded every  form  of  speculative  opinion,  both  sceptical 
and  dogmatic,  dualistic  and  monistic,  —  polytheism,  mon- 
otheism, atheism,  pantheism,  sensualism,  subjective  ideal- 
ism, objective  idealism,  absolute  idealism,  nihilism.  No 
fineness,  no  stretch,  no  complexity  of  dialectics  was  un- 


1 88  SKETCHES   OF   LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

known  to  the  Brahmanic  sages.  Gotama  went  over  these 
varieties  of  thought  with  consummate  vigor  and  patience. 
He  analyzed  the  nature  of  the  soul  and  its  constituent 
faculties  with  exhaustive  profundity  and  acumen,  fearless- 
ly scrutinizing  the  powers  and  experiences  of  human 
nature,  following  every  clew  of  logic  and  of  intuition  to 
its  furthest  reach.  He  canvassed  the  dogmatic  beliefs 
and  religious  rites  of  the  Brahmans  with  startling  audaci- 
ty. Long  baffled,  at  variance  in  his  own  thought,  dissat- 
isfied and  unsettled,  worn  to  a  skeleton  with  incessant 
thinking  and  privation,  at  last  the  hour  of  triumph  broke, 
the  end  of  his  tremendous  toils  was  accomplished,  he  be- 
lieved he  had  attained  the  sum  of  truth,  free  from  admix- 
ture of  error.  He  was  thirty-five  years  of  age,  when, 
called  Buddha,  —  the  Awakened,  the  Illumined,  —  wiser 
than  the  wisest,  higher  than  the  highest,  he  began  to 
teach  his  system  for  the  salvation  of  all  living  creatures 
from  the  miseries  of  existence. 

While  the  greatest  teachers  and  leaders  of  our  race  are 
most  the  fathers  of  the  future,  they  are  also  most  the  sons 
of  the  past.  No  one,  however  originative,  can  be  inde- 
pendent of  his  educational  inheritance.  Freely  as  Gota- 
ma rejected  or  modified  established  views,  and  added 
new  ones,  the  foundation  and  motive  of  his  system  were 
the  same  as  those  of  the  system  in  vogue  when  he  arose. 
From  a  combination  of  causes  one  predominant  style  of 
thought  and  feeling  had  prevailed  in  India  for  ages. 
The  stagnant  despotism  of  the  government,  the  fixed 
cruelty  of  the  institution  of  caste,  the  oppressive  heat 
and  languor  of  the  climate,  the  weary  monotony  of  usages, 
the  tenacious,  passionate  sensibility  of  the  people,  the 
rich  brooding  meditativeness  of  the  Hindu  mind,  con- 
spired to  produce  an  intense  feeling  at  once  of  the  bur- 
dens of  life  and  of  the  profound  unreality  of  sensible 
objects.  The  habit  of  thinking  all  natural  phenomena 
mere  dreams  and  illusions,  all  existence  an  odious  pen- 
ance, nourished  for  many  generations,  had  taken  deep 
root  and  secured  vivid  development  in  the  whole  Hindu 
race.  No  other  nation  was  ever  so  priest-ridden,  or  ac- 
cepted so  besottedly  the  creed  and  ritual  imposed  on 


BUDDHA.  189 

them.  They  believed  that  the  visible  universe,  filled  with 
created  beings,  from  gods  to  insects,  was  a  congeries  of 
deceptive  appearances,  in  which  all  creatures  were  en- 
tangled in  a  whirl  of  miseries.  As  soon  as  one  died  who 
had  not  attained  emancipation,  he  was  born  again  in  some 
other  form,  to  repeat  the  horrid  routine.  The  supreme 
sigh  was  to  be  freed  from  the  chain  of  births  and  the 
wheel  of  illusion.  The  means  of  this  deliverance  the 
Brahmans  monopolized  in  their  own  caste,  with  their  ex- 
clusive possession  of  the  Veda  and  the  Sacraments. 
They  taught  that  there  was  but  one  real  Being ;  every 
other  existence  was  an  illusion,  removable  when  the  soul, 
by  adequate  penance,  worship,  and  meditation,  came  to 
pierce  the  blurring  veils  of  sense,  and  recover  the  lost 
knowledge  of  the  identity  of  its  own  true  self  with  the 
sole  Being.  All  who  had  not  this  knowledge  could  only 
practise  the  prescribed  ceremonies,  and  accumulate  merit, 
until  some  fortunate  link  of  the  chain  of  transmigrations 
should  bring  them  within  the  priestly  class.  Nature, 
therefore,  was  considered  a  torturing  round  of  illusions, 
through  which  all  creatures  whirled  in  the  circuit  of  trans- 
migrations, hopeless  of  escape  save  through  the  door  of 
the  Brahmanic  caste.  This  fearful  monopoly  the  priestly 
hierarchy  had  managed  for  many  centuries  with  mon- 
strous self-complacency  and  a  crushing  popular  ceremo- 
nial, using  the  key  of  knowledge  for  themselves  alone, 
seeking  no  converts  in  other  castes,  dispensing  no  re- 
demptive light  on  other  lands. 

Gotama  started  from  the  same  cardinal  principles,  but 
with  an  abrupt  difference  of  spirit  and  method.  If  the 
system  he  constructed  was  more  eclectic  than  original, 
his  wonderful  moral  sympathy  and  personality  stamped  it 
with  a  startling  freshness  of  form  and  novelty  of  power. 
His  four  fundamental  propositions  were :  There  is  sorrow^ 
Every  lining  creature  feels  it,  Deliverance  is  desirable,  Purt 
knowledge  is  the  only  possible  deliverance.  He  first  diverged 
into  sharp  contradiction  with  the  Brahmans  by  flinging 
away,  as  worthless  and  burdensome,  their  cumbrous  cere- 
monial law  with  its  superstitious  prayers,  sacrifices  and 
austerities,  and  translating  the  substance  of  their  abstruse 


190  SKETCHES   OF   LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

philosophy  into  a  brief  formula  of  salvation.  Secondly, 
he  diverged  from  them  in  the  purity  and  expansiveness 
of  his  morality.  His  personal  and  didactic  ethics  were 
as  noble  as  have  ever  been  exemplified.  He  placed  in 
the  foreground  of  his  system  all  the  practical  virtues,  such 
as  justice,  veracity,  purity,  benevolence,  reverence.  He 
taught  self-sacrifice  in  its  highest  form,  and  recommended 
the  practice  of  every  virtue  on  disinterested  principles. 
When  he  had  acquired  his  own  deliverance,  his  mind 
burned  with  the  divinest  pity  for  others,  with  tender  and 
heroic  desires  to  redeem  all  from  their  sorrows.  His  was 
the  first  missionary  religion  that  ever  appeared  on  earth. 
Before  him  no  religionist  had  ever  dreamed  of  converting 
a  foreign  people  to  his  form  of  worship.  Religion  was 
a  family  or  national  treasure  scrupulously  guarded  from 
strangers.  Not  even  the  lowest  grade  of  Hindus,  the 
Sudras,  would  admit  a  foreigner  into  its  ranks.  But 
this  great  reformer,  with  an  unequalled  boldness  of  gen- 
erosity, commanded  his  disciples  to  traverse  the  earth 
with  the  free  offer  of  salvation  to  all.  He  was  inspired 
by  an  unprecedented  feeling  of  brotherly  sympathy  for 
the  whole  race.  The  earliest  teacher  of  whom  there  is 
proof  that  he  extended  the  sense  of  duty  from  the  house- 
hold, the  village,  the  tribe,  the  nation,  over  all  castes  and 
outcasts,  to  the  widest  circle  of  mankind,  is  Gotama 
Buddha.  It  is  his  imperishable  honor  to  be  the  first  man 
historically  known  to  have  distinctly  propounded  the  idea 
of  humanity.  Six  centuries  afterward  Jesus  conceived 
that  idea  with  still  deeper  inspiration,  and  preached  it 
with  still  greater  effect.  But  it  is  wonderful  that  Buddha 
should  have  clearly  declared  it  so  long  before,  and  the 
world  will  always  owe  him  a  debt  of  revering  gratitude 
for  the  fruits  it  has  borne  in  the  followers  of  his  faith. 

While  Gotama  agreed  with  the  Brahmans  that  the  world 
was  a  prison  and  lazar-house,  life  an  evil,  deliverance  a 
good,  and  pure  knowledge  the  means  of  deliverance,  his 
theory  of  what  that  pure  knowledge  was  stood  in  extreme 
opposition  to  theirs.  They  taught  that  by  penance, 
prayer,  sacrifice,  and  reflection,  man  might  attain  the 
perception  of  the  one  divine  Reality,  and  through  that 


BUDDHA.  IQI 

perception  extricate  himself  from  the  time-medley  of 
change  and  illusion,  break  the  bond  of  metempsychosis, 
and,  absorbed  in  the  Godhead,  be  born  no  more.  Gota- 
ma  taught  that  by  the  practice  of  disinterested  virtue  and 
indomitable  thought  man  might  detach  himself  from  all 
desire,  and  so  neutralize  the  attractions  that  hold  him  in 
this  wretched  sphere  as  to  fly  away  into  a  state  of  uncon- 
ditional exemption.  He  believed  strictly  in  no  God,  no 
absorption,  no  transmigration,  no  real  self.  But  he  had 
equivalents  for  all  these  :  he  recognized  the  phenomena 
which  the  Brahmans  had  generalized  under  these  terms, 
only  he  sought  by  a  sharper  analysis  and  a  wider  intuition 
to  give  a  sounder  explanation  of  them.  Like  Hume, 
Spinoza,  and  other  subtle  masters  of  thinking,  Buddha 
fancied  he  saw  the  delusiveness  of  all  selfhood,  saw  that 
the  soul  is  no  substantive  unit,  but  merely  a  current  of 
states,  its  sole  identity  consisting  of  the  accumulated  mass 
of  associations  in  experience,  the  organic  conditions  of 
memory.  Accordingly,  when  the  organism  goes  to  pieces 
in  death  the  soul  is  extinct,  as  a  harmonious  consensus 
ceases  with  the  extermination  of  the  related  parts.  The 
attainment  of  this  knowledge,  that  the  soul  is  a  process, 
closing  with  death,  and  not  a  substance,  capable  of  re- 
peated births  and  lives,  is  the  first  great  step  in  Gotama's 
doctrine  of  salvation.  This  is  the  essence  of  his  meta- 
physics, which  he  affirms,  illustrates,  and  enforces  without 
end. 

But  he  could  not  wholly  throw  off  the  influence  of  the 
habits  of  thought  embedded  in  the  Hindu  mind  by  thou- 
sands of  years  of  intensely  repeated  meditations.  The 
concentrated  substance  of  these  habits  was  intertwined 
with  the  doctrine  of  transmigration.  Gotama  furnished 
for  the  transmigrating  soul  which  his  remorseless  analysis 
destroyed,  a  substitute  as  plausible  to  the  mental  state  of 
his  hearers  as  it  is  strange  and  incredible  to  us.  He 
maintained  that  when  one  died  who  had  not  achieved  a 
perfected  insight  and  virtue,  the  desire  that  remained,  the 
love  of  finite  things,  the  cleaving  to  existence,  produced 
another  being  endowed  with  the  exact  desert,  good  or  bad, 
left  behind  by  the  departed  predecessor.  Thus  though 


IQ2  SKETCHES    OF    LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

there  is  no  surviving  soul  in  man,  yet  the  law  of  retribu- 
tion holds  over ;  the  fearful  vortex  of  births  is  preserved 
full,  the  detestable  kaleidoscope  of  illusions  is  kept  twink- 
ling. He  attributes  a  kind  of  individuality  to  the  karma 
of  every  being,  the  aggregate  of  his  actions  during  his 
existence,  the  sum  of  his  merit  and  demerit.  And  this 
karma,  or  collective  moral  worth  of  a  man,  when  he  dies, 
is  transferred  intact  to  his  successor.  It  is  a  striking 
example  of  what  was  the  almost  invariable  error  of  the 
ancient  metaphysicians,  —  regarding  an  abstraction  as  an 
entity. 

Gotama  saw  that  there  could  be  no  illusion  without 
some  reality  behind  it  to  cause  it.  If  the  soul  or  self 
regarded  as  an  integral  entity  was  an  illusion,  there  must 
be  some  force  to  sustain  the  process  of  life  on  which  that 
illusion  rested.  Now  this  force  he  interprets  as  a  cleav- 
ing to  existence,  a  subtle  desire  to  be  and  to  feel.  This 
cleaving  to  existence  is  itself  the  result  of  ignorance.  In 
consequence  of  ignorance,  there  is  an  accumulation  of 
merit  and  demerit ;  in  consequence  of  merit  and  demerit, 
consciousness  is  produced  ;  in  consequence  of  conscious- 
ness, the  mental  faculties  and  the  body  are  produced ;  in 
consequence  of  the  mind  and  the  body,  sensations  are 
produced  ;  in  consequence  of  sensations,  desire  is  pro- 
duced ;  in  consequence  of  desire,  attachment  is  produced  ; 
in  consequence  of  attachment,  birth  is  produced ;  in  con- 
sequence of  birth,  grief,  discontent,  vexation,  decay,  and 
death  are  produced.  Thus  originates  the  complete  catena- 
tion of  evils.  Whenever  one  of  these  constituents  ceases 
to  be,  the  next  in  the  series  ceases  to  be,  and  the  whole 
combination  of  sorrow  ends. 

The  method  Buddha  proposed  for  destroying  the  cleav- 
ing to  existence  was  by  removing  the  ignorance  which 
caused  it.  This  ignorance  he  would  remove  by  destroy- 
ing the  self-love,  the  personal  desires,  the  enslaving  at- 
tachments, which  blind  men  to  the  two  truths  that  all 
finite  being  is  essentially  evil,  a  painful  turmoil  of  changes, 
and  that  eternal  deliverance  from  it  is  the  absolute  good. 
This  fatal  love  of  self,  this  profound  clinging  to  things 
he  would  overcome  primarily,  by  revealing  to  m?n  *he 


BUDDHA.  193 

phenomenal  nature  of  the  soul,  that  he  is  only  a  brief  and 
complicated  process  of  states,  the  new  individual  to  whom 
his  karma  is  to  be  transferred  being  an  utterly  separate 
person  with  no  remembrance  of  him  whatever;  and  sec- 
ondarily, by  the  most  persevering  emphasis  and  con- 
templation of  all  the  disgusts  and  horrors  of  experience. 
In  this  manner  he  aimed  to  detach  man  from  false  delights, 
wean  him  from  the  folly  of  selfish  affection,  lead  him  to 
lose  himself  in  an  infinite  surrender  and  repose,  cause  him 
in  disinterested  sympathy  for  others  to  labor  to  break  the 
unhappy  series  of  existences,  dissolve  the  dark  combination 
of  woes,  and  unpeople  the  worlds  by  peopling  Nirwa"na. 

The  meaning  of  this  last  word,  Nirwa"na,  is  the  key  of 
Buddhism,  alike  in  its  own  essence  and  in  its  distinction 
from  Brahmanism  and  from  Christianity.  The  attainment 
of  Nirwdna  is  regarded  as  the  fulfilment  of  the  highest 
possible  destiny  of  man.  The  highest  possible  destiny  of 
man,  to  the  mind  of  the  Brahman,  is  the  identification  of 
the  self  of  the  seer  with  the  Soul  of  the  Universe.  To 
the  Christian  it  is  the  immortal  blessedness  of  the  per- 
sonal soul  in  a  beatific  world,  the  translation  of  the  con- 
scious individual  to  the  society  of  the  redeemed  and  the 
presence  of  God  in  heaven.  What  is  it  to  the  Buddhist  ? 
Is  it  to  become  identical  with  empty  infinitude  ?  The 
Brahman  would  say,  with  ultimate  insight,  I  am  God.  This, 
at  bottom,  is  the  creed  of  every  thorough-going  idealist, 
such  as  Vyasa,  Plotinus,  or  Hegel.  The  Christian  would 
say,  with  filial  trust,  I  am  an  inextinguishable  personal 
spark  struck  out  by  God,  a  favored  and  indestructible 
child  of  the  Infinite  Spirit.  This  is  the  consistent  creed 
of  all  who  regard  the  soul  as  a  finite  immaterial  entity. 
The  Buddhist  would  say,  with  perfected  detachment,  I  am 
nothing  :  and  would  carry  out  the  legitimate  consequences 
of  the  thought.  Holding  that  his  soul  or  selfhood  has 
no  substantial,  but  only  a  phenomenal,  being,  that  it  is  but 
the  point  of  convergence  of  the  forces  of  the  organism, 
yet  believing  that  that  phenomenal  centre  of  consciousness 
is  fatally  bound  to  a  continued  succession  of  lives,  and  ex- 
posed in  every  life  to  innumerable  loathsome  evils  until 
he  so  perfectly  perceives  the  delusiveness  of  its  substanti- 
9  M 


194  SKETCHES   OF    LONELY   CHARACTERS 

ality  and  so  completely  sheds  all  the  affections  begotten 
by  the  illusion  as  to  dissolve  the  karma  and  annihilate  the 
cleaving  to  existence,  —  he  sets  himself  at  work  to  secure 
this  end,  to  dissipate  the  spell  of  ignorance,  break  the 
chains  of  desire,  and  achieve  an  absolute  detachment,  an 
absolute  indifference  to  everything. 

Nearly  all  Christian  writers,  nearly  all  Western  philos- 
ophers, who  have  studied  this  system,  —  so  completely  op- 
posed to  their  own  modes  of  feeling, — have  been  horrified 
by  it,  filled  with  astonishment  at  it.  Even  so  flexible  and 
wide  a  scholar  and  thinker  as  Max  Miiller  says,  it  seems 
"  a  religion  made  for  a  mad  house,"  and  stands  amazed 
before  the  almost  incredible  fact  that  such  religious  power 
should  have  been  exerted,  such  moral  benefits  conferred, 
by  a  teacher  whose  whole  doctrine  is  summed  in  the  dark 
code  of  atheism  and  annihilation.  But  atheism  and  an- 
nihilation are  very  different  experiences  to  the  Buddhist 
and  to  the  Christian,  and  exert  very  different  influences. 
The  place  occupied  in  the  mind  of  a  theist  by  the  idea 
of  God,  or  by  the  idea  of  immortality,  in  the  mind  of  an 
atheist  is  occupied  by  something  else  :  and  this  substitute 
may  fulfil  for  him  the  office  of  the  idea  whose  place  it 
holds.  However  strange  it  may  appear,  Nirwana,  god- 
less and  empty  as  it  is,  largely  discharges  for  the  disciples 
of  Gotama  the  functions  discharged  for  us  by  the  ideas 
of  God  and  immortality.  It  is  the  inspirer  of  their  toils 
and  aspirations,  the  receptacle  of  their  exhaling  worships. 
To  appreciate  the  real  nature  and  influence  of  the  doc- 
trine we  must  not  stand  on  the  outside  with  disdainful 
superiority,  but  enter  the  interior  with  charitable  humility 
and  curiosity  and  sympathy,  and  try  to  reproduce  its  re- 
lationships as  they  live  in  the  bosoms  of  its  advocates. 
We  must,  for  the  time,  divest  ourselves  of  our  own  spec- 
ulative and  emotional  peculiarities,  and  invest  ourselves 
with  those  of  the  ancient  Hindus,  and  of  Gotama  him- 
self. 

Proceeding  in  this  spirit,  we  shall  first  conceive  of  all 
finite  existence  as  made  up  of  unreality,  pain,  and  imper- 
manence.  Next  we  shall  conceive  of  all  ignorant  beings 
as  inextricably  fastened  by  their  ignorance  and  their  de- 


BUDDHA.  195 

luded  desires  in  this  heaving  collection  of  misery.  Then 
we  shall  conceive  that  a  perfect  salvation  for  them  all  is 
possible  and  unspeakably  desirable.  Still  further,  we 
shall  conceive  that  that  salvation  is  to  be  won  by  a  cer- 
tain mode  of  thought,  feeling,  and  action  ;  by  the  patient 
practice  of  every  social  virtue  and  self-sacrificing  disci- 
pline. We  shall  see  how  that  reflective  insight,  sympathy 
and  self-surrendering  aspiration,  carried  through  the  con- 
stant practice  of  the  five  great  meditations  of  kindness, 
pity,  joy,  disgust,  and  indifference,  will  ripen  into  a  perfect 
detachment  and  equipoise,  —  sure  signal  of  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  productive  cleaving  to  existence,  infallible 
precursor  of  the  eternal  release,  absorbing  foretaste  of 
Nirwana.  And  finally  we  shall,  by  an  adequate  contem- 
plation of  the  illustrations  he  uses,  so  familiarize  ourselves 
with  the  Buddhist's  habit  of  sentiment  that  it  will  no 
longer  baffle  or  be  repulsive  to  us,  but  we  shall  enter  into 
it  as  he  does  himself,  putting  it  on  and  off  at  pleasure. 
Such  an  exercise,  a  mental  freedom  and  force  competent 
to  the  sympathetic  conquest  of  modes  of  thought  and 
feeling  so  wholly  foreign  from  our  own,  is  an  achievement 
of  the  most  honorable  kind.  Nothing  can  be  more  eman- 
cipating, expanding,  and  enriching  in  its  effect. 

The  moral  regimen  of  Buddhism  is  self-renunciation, 
disinterested  sympathy,  the  common  virtues  of  life,  and 
meditative  aspiration,  carried  to  their  last  terms,  for  the 
purpose  of  escaping  the  intolerable  evil  of  existence  and 
winning  the  absolute  good  of  Nirwana.  Thus  conceived, 
as  it  is  by  its  votaries,  so  far  from  wondering  at  its  effects 
we  must  see  that  no  effects  are  too  great  to  ascribe  to  it 
To  trace  the  proper  working  of  any  system  of  religion 
we  should  look  at  the  system  as  it  lies  in  the  minds  and 
hearts  of  its  disciples,  not  as  it  is  impoverished  and  de- 
graded in  the  travesty  presented  by  ignorant  and  hostile 
observers. 

This  difference  in  the  quality  of  the  same  mode  of 
thought  when  regarded  by  different  persons  is  curiously 
illustrated  in  Jean  Paul's  critique  on  the  moral  influence 
of  the  subjective  idealism  of  Fichte,  and  in  Fichte's 
own  estimate  of  it.  This  is  Jean  Paul's  awful  vision  ; 


196        SKETCHES  OF  LONELY  CHARACTERS. 

"  Around  me  is  a  wide  petrified  humanity  :  in  the  dark 
unpeopled  stillness  no  love  glows,  no  admiration,  no 
prayer,  no  hope,  no  aim.  I,  so  all  alone,  nowhere  a 
single  throb  of  life,  nothing  around  me,  and  besides 
myself  nothing  but  nothing,  am  only  conscious  of 
my  lofty  Unconsciousness  ;  within  me  the  dumb  blind 
working  Demogorgon  is  concealed,  and  I  am  it.  So  I 
emerge  from  eternity,  so  I  proceed  into  eternity.  And 
who  knows  me  now  and  hears  my  sorrow?  I.  Who 
knows  me  and  hears  it  to  all  eternity  ?  I."  Compare 
with  this  horror  the  glowing  picture  drawn  by  the  master 
himself :  "  In  this  point  of  view  I  become  a  new  creature. 
The  ties  by  which  my  mind  was  formerly  united  to  this 
world,  and  by  whose  secret  guidance  I  followed  all  its 
movements,  are  forever  sundered,  and  I  stand  free,  calm, 
and  immovable,  a  universe  to  myself.  No  longer  through 
my  affections,  but  by  my  eye  alone,  do  I  apprehend  out- 
ward objects,  and  am  connected  with  them  ;  and  this  eye 
itself  is  purified  by  freedom,  and  looks  through  error  and 
deformity  to  the  True  and  Beautiful,  as  on  the  unruffled 
surface  of  water  forms  are  more  purely  mirrored  in  a 
milder  light." 

There  are  four  paths  leading  by  prolonged  and  arduous 
exertions  to  the  fruition  of  Nirwana.  Through  these 
paths  Gotama  sought  by  his  system  to  guide  all  beings  to 
the  shoreless  ocean  of  exemption,  to  the  wall-less  city  of 
rest.  These  four  paths,  Sowan,  Sakradagami,  Anagami, 
and.  Arya,  are  only  divisions,  at  different  approximations 
to  the  goal,  of  the  one  straight  and  narrow  way,  namely, 
the  dissolution  of  the  whole  linked  series  of  sorrow  by  the 
extinction  of  its  two  earliest  terms,  ignorance  and  desire. 
By  the  "  destruction  of  the  hundred  and  eight  modes  of 
evil  desire,"  the  Buddhist  "  rescues  himself  from  birth,  as 
from  the  jaws  of  an  alligator."  It  is  impossible  to  dis- 
cover any  way  in  which  it  is  "  desirable  to  hold  a  red  hot 
bar  of  iron  "  ;  so  one  who  has  fully  contemplated  the  evils 
of  existence  can  see  "  no  form  in  which  existence  is  to  be 
desired."  It  is  delicious  for  one  who  has  been  "  broiling 
before  a  fire "  to  "  escape  into  the  coolness  of  an  open 
space  "  ;  the  evils  of  existence  are  the  fire,  Nirwana  is  the 
cool  open  space. 


BUDDHA.  197 

Is  it  true,  then,  that  the  religion  which  has  had  the 
most  numerous  following  of  all  the  historic  religions  has 
made  an  atheistic  annihilation  at  once  its  God  and  its 
Elysium  ?  Astounding  as  the  proposition  may  be,  so 
in  the  form  of  statement  it  is  to  us.  But  we  may  be 
quite  sure  so  it  is  not  in  the  substance  of  faith  to  its  vota- 
ries. Let  us,  therefore,  instead  of  turning  away  in  scorn, 
or  shuddering  with  horror,  try  to  discern  the  meaning  of 
Nirwana  in  the  theory  of  life  and  death  held  by  Gotama 
Buddha. 

In  the  outset  we  must  grasp  the  fact  that  the  Oriental 
Buddhists  loathe  existence  as  the  sum  of  evil,  the  West- 
ern Christians  cling  to  it  as  the  one  good  ;  the  former 
yearn  towards  extinction  as  the  sum  of  good,  the  latter 
shrink  from  it  as  the  one  evil.  This  direct  antagonism  of 
faith  and  feeling  between  them  and  us  is  a  result  of  his- 
toric causes,  —  race,  climate,  institutions,  and  other  influ- 
ences. To  appreciate  the  truth  in  the  case  we  must  not 
begin  by  proudly  assuming  that  we  are  wholly  right,  they 
wholly  wrong.  We  must  impartially  endeavor  to  discern 
how  far  both  may  be  right,  how  far  each  may  be  wrong. 
On  reflection,  it  is  clear,  first,  that  those  who  follow  their 
natural  primitive  instincts,  dwelling  on  the  known  goods 
of  experience,  will  cleave  to  life  with  blind  exaggerating 
greed  and  tenacity ;  their  self-consciousness  and  selfish 
desires  will  gather  into  a  ruling  object  of  regard  every- 
thing pertaining  to  the  fruition  of  personality.  Those,  on 
the  contrary,  who,  under  the  domination  of  an  ascetic  re- 
coil, select  for  constant  contemplation  the  known  evils  of 
experience,  aggregating  and  emphasizing  them,  will  natu- 
rally acquire  a  morbid  dislike  of  life,  an  habitual  weariness 
and  loathing  of  it,  as  made  up  of  the  evils  which  exclu- 
sively fill  their  vision.  Now,  obviously,  the  truth  lies  be- 
tween the  two  views ;  and  the  wise  and  healthy  style  of 
conduct  lies  between  the  two  extreme  courses  which  they 
legitimate.  Our  present  existence,  which  is  by  no  means 
to  be  confounded  with  the  entire  range  of  universal  life, 
is  neither  pure  good  nor  pure  evil,  but  a  mixture  of  them, 
good  in  its  essence  and  intent,  evil  in  some  of  its  accom- 
paniments. It  is,  therefore,  not  to  be  supremely  loved, 


198  SKETCHES   OF    LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

nor  supremely  hated.  With  an  accurate  discrimination 
of  its  good  and  evil  it  is  to  be  soberly  valued,  carefully 
improved,  and  meekly  resigned  at  last  in  consonance 
with  that  Order  of  the  Whole,  which  must  be  incompara- 
bly better  and  more  important  than  any  atomic  part. 
The  universal  and  absolute  detachment  which  forms  the 
soul  of  Gotama's  theory  of  life,  is  the  fanatical  exaggera- 
tion of  a  sacred  truth  into  a  noble  error.  The  true  pro- 
cess and  purpose  of  life  is  the  fruition  of  function.  Re 
nunciation,  the  highest  attribute  of  a  moral  being,  is  a 
function  of  free  self-consciousness  for  the  sake  of  co-or- 
dinating, refining  and  enhancing  the  other  functions.  To 
make  it  a  devouring  end  in  itself,  and  use  it  for  the  sup- 
pression of  all  function,  is  a  supreme  perversion.  The 
genuine  purpose  and  destiny  of  man  in  this  life  is  the 
self-ruled  and  harmonious  fruition  of  the  functions  of  his 
being,  not  their  self-abnegated  extermination.  The  real 
office  of  renunciation  is  not  cessation  and  destruction, 
but  regulation  and  fulfilment.  It  should  free  him  who 
exercises  it  from  slavery  to  all  lower  and  worse  standards, 
to  the  service  of  higher  and  better  ones.  Every  self- 
denial  should  be  the  instrumental  transition  to  a  greater 
and  purer  gratification.  Detachment  from  evil  is  a 
means  ;  the  only  end  is  attachment  to  good.  The  gen- 
erous illusion. in  the  Buddhist  theory  of  salvation  is  that 
it  makes  an  all-engulfing  end  of  that  which  is  truly  but  a 
means.  Detachment  from  the  transient  and  individual 
arrogates  the  place  of  attachment  to  the  eternal  and  ab- 
solute. 

And  yet,  though  this  error  is  correctly  ascribed  to  the 
terms  of  the  theory  as  set  forth  by  its  dogmatic  expound- 
ers, it  is  experimentally  neutralized  in  the  hearts  of  those 
who  practise  the  system,  as  it  plainly  was  in  the  experience 
of  him  who  first  propounded  it.  All  the  renunciations  and 
detachments  of  Gotama  were  prompted  by  and  taken  up 
into  one  supreme  attachment,  namely,  that  marked  by  the 
word  Nirwana.  All  his  desires  were  swallowed  up  in  the 
one  desire  to  be  without  desires.  And  the  desire  to  be 
desire/ess,  carried  to  such  a  pitch  of  harmony  and  equilibra- 
tion as  to  fancy  itself  extinguished  in  its  own  fulfilment,  is 


BUDDHA.  1 99 

NIRWANA.  It  is  clear  on  reflection,  that  however  closely, 
according  to  the  ordinary  conceptions  of  language,  the 
Buddhist  idea  of  Nirwana  and  the  Christian  idea  of  annihi- 
lation appear  to  correspond  with  each  other,  metaphysi- 
cally and  morally  their  fundamental  meanings  to  the  East- 
ern and  the  Western  mind  are  in  world-wide  variance.  By 
annihilation  we  mean  a  boundless  negation,  the  dep- 
rivation of  all  being ;  and  we  regard  it  as  a  blank  horror. 
By  Nirwana  the  Buddhist  thinkers  mean  a  boundless  affir- 
mation, the  resumption  of  that  relationless,  changeless 
state  of  which  every  form  of  existence  is  the  deprivation  ; 
and  they  regard  it  as  an  infinite  entrancement.  Immor 
tality  and  annihilation  are  words  we  use  to  mark  our 
ignorance  of  the  destiny  of  man  after  death,  our  ignorance 
of  that  limitless  abyss  of  potentiality  which  is  the  foil  to 
the  visible  creation.  Imagination  appropriates  the  attrac- 
tive elements  of  the  known  to  make  the  one  mask  beauti- 
ful ;  and  we  love  it ;  appropriates  the  repulsive  elements 
of  the  known  to  make  the  other  mask  hideous ;  and 
we  hate  it.  In  like  manner  Gotama  masks  his  igno- 
rance of  the  dismal  night  against  which  all  created  things 
stand  in  relief,  the  unknowable,  infinite  side  of  our  destiny, 
with  the  word  Nirwana.  And  if  that  mask  be  formless 
and  colorless,  and  yet  he  has  the  energy  of  faith  to  look 
towards  it  with  unconquerable  love  and  longing,  the  feat 
is  wonderful  rather  than  absurd,  and  he  deserves  to  be 
admired.  Instead  of  presuming  to  look  down  on  this 
cosmopolitan  hero  of  the  mysteries  of  human  life  and 
destiny  as  a  deluded  inferior  and  unbeliever,  we  should 
see  that  there  was  much  in  his  example  both  of  faith  and 
conduct  so  fat  superior  to  our  attainment  that  we  are 
scarcely  competent  to  emulate  it. 

In  self-sacrificing  detachment  from  the  collective  seduc- 
tions of  the  earth,  with  disinterested  sympathy  for  all  crea- 
tures, he  forsook  the  throne  of  an  empire  for  the  tree  of 
an  anchorite  in  the  forest,  and  persevered  for  years  in  the 
search  for  truth  by  meditations  so  profoundly  abstracted, 
that,  his  biographers  say,  if  a  trumpet  had  been  blown 
close  to  his  ears  he  would  no  more  have  heard  it  than  if  he 
had  been  dead.  Having  completed  his  investigations, 


200  SKETCHES   OF    LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

and  compacted  the  results  in  a  teachable  form,  he  took  up 
his  residence  in  a  monastic  school,  and  began  to  gather 
disciples.  For  nearly  fifty  years  he  never  ceased  to  pro- 
claim his  doctrine  of  salvation  to  all  who  would  listen. 
He  made  frequent  journeys  over  the  country,  preaching 
his  system  with  an  energy  of  conviction,  an  earnestness 
of  appeal,  a  variety  of  illustration,  and  an  emphasis  of 
example,  which  combined  with  other  co-operating  influ- 
ences to  work  a  revolution  in  some  respects  the  greatest 
ever  wrought  by  one  man.  For  when  the  dying  old  Gota- 
ma,  at  the  age  of  eighty,  under  the  sal-tree  near  Kusinara, 
saw  Nirwdna,  his  monasteries  were  dotting  the  hills,  the 
yellow  cloaks  of  his  monks  fluttering  in  all  the  roads, 
of  India.  And  the  system  continued  to  spread  rapidly 
over  one  nation  after  another,  drawing  swarms  of  con- 
verts, until  it  became,  as  it  is  at  this  moment,  after  the  lapse 
of  twenty-five  hundred  years,  the  most  numerously  followed 
of  all  the  religions  that  have  ever  prevailed  on  the  earth. 
The  ignorant  myriads  of  his  followers,  unable  to  under- 
stand or  be  satisfied  with  the  transcendent  abstractions  of 
the  system,  deformed  its  teachings  by  the  addition  of  their 
superstitious  notions,  and  ended,  in  many  cases,  by  deifying 
the  sage  himself  and  painting  a  new  paradise  in  the  abyss. 
Still,  in  all  its  forms,  the  religion  retains  much  of  the 
metaphysical  speculation,  and  more  of  the  sublime  ethics, 
of  its  founder.  The  man  who  could  do  this,  —  overthrow 
the  exclusive  despotism  of  the  Brahmanical  hierarchy  with 
his  spiritual  democracy,  revolutionize  surrounding  coun- 
tries, make  his  philosophy  the  religion  of  half  the  world 
for  over  a  score  of  centuries,  compelling  innumerable 
multitudes  of  disciples  to  forego  all  the  world  for  the  self- 
denying  repetition  of  his  example,  —  this  man  must  have 
had  not  only  a  personality,  but  also  a  faith,  commensurate 
with  these  astounding  effects.  Gotama  Buddha  stands 
out  as  one  man  from  amidst  thousands  of  millions. 

To  stigmatize  such  a  man,  in  the  opprobrious  sense  of 
the  words,  as  an  •  atheistic  eulogizer  of  nothingness,  a 
godless  unbeliever,  is  manifest  injustice.  Absolute  pure 
being  is  nothing  definite,  is  no  thing.  It  is  All.  As  Spino- 
za, with  other  metaphysical  masters  before  and  after  him, 


BUDDHA.  201 

has  said,  every  determination  of  being  is  a  negation  ; 
every  attribute  or  quality  affirmed  of  it  is  a  limitation. 
Now  Gotama's  doctrine  of  the  extinction  of  existence 
means  the  removal  of  limitations,  the  destruction  of  all 
obstacles  to  the  return  into  that  pure  being,  whereof,  as 
indicated  by  the  word  Nirwana,  he  himself  says,  "  We  can 
affirm  nothing,  neither  that  it  is  nor  that  it  is  not,  since  it 
has  no  qualities."  It  is  that  conditionless  state,  the  idea 
of  which  it  bewilders  the  faculties  of  thought  to  conceive 
and  baffles  the  resources  of  language  to  express  ;  although 
the  writings  of  every  deep  speculative  philosopher,  from 
Heraclitus  to  Hamilton,  deal  familiarly  with  it.  The 
scientific  idea  of  force  is  the  idea  of  as  pure  and  myste- 
rious a  unity  as  the  One  of  Parmenides.  It  is  a  noumenal 
integer  phenomenally  differentiated  into  the  glittering  uni- 
verse of  things.  The  Christian  who  asserts  that  the  Un- 
knowable Cause  of  All  is  an  intelligent  and  affectionate 
Father,  a  personal  counterpart  of  himself  dilated  to  im- 
mensity, would  brand  as  an  atheistic  nothingarian  the 
scientist  who  pauses  with  the  idea  of  a  unit  of  force  and 
denies  substantive  validity  to  everything  else.  And  yet 
to  the  philosopher  who  has  adequately  thought  his  way 
to  that  conception,  with  the  fit  emotion,  it  is  unquestion- 
ably a  conception  of  overwhelming  religiousness,  capable 
of  yielding  an  unsurpassed  measure  of  'authority  and 
trust,  of  awe,  sweetness,  and  peace. 

Every  representation  of  God,  salvation,  or  heaven,  is  a 
state  of  mind.  To  every  man  his  highest  apprehensible 
reality  stands  for  God.  The  purest,  serenest,  most  suffic- 
ing state  of  mind  he  knows  stands  to  him  as  the  represen- 
tation of  salvation.  The  perpetuity  of  that  state  of  mind 
is  his  heaven.  Apply  this  to  Gotama  Buddha.  When  as 
the  result  of  his  exercises  he  had  freed  himself  from  un- 
balanced desires,  risen  above  the  disturbing  sphere  of 
worldly  things,  and  in  the  perfect  triumph  of  detachment 
and  indifference  secured  an  ecstatic  equilibrium  of  the  con- 
stituents of  consciousness,  experimentally  equivalent  to  the 
extinction  of  consciousness,  his  mind  a  waveless  sea  with- 
out shore,  fixing  the  unruffled  idea  of  that  state  for  eter- 
nity, he  projected  it  to  infinitude  and  called  it  Nirwana, 
9* 


202  SKETCHES   OF    LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

And  thus,  while  according  to  our  notions  he  believed  in 
no  God  and  no  future  life,  Nirwana  was  to  him  at  once 
God,  salvation,  and  heaven.  The  power  of  this  faith 
inspired  him  to  break  the  bonds  of  passion  and  vanquish 
the  temptations  of  the  world  as  easily  as  the  arrow  of  a 
skilful  archer  cuts  through  the  shadow  of  a  tree.  It  is  the 
most  wonderful  psychological  phenomenon  in  the  history 
of  the  human  race.  For  Gotama  Buddha,  teeming  with 
repose  of  strength,  wisdom,  and  bliss,  advanced  towards 
Nirwana,  in  what  seems  to  us  the  most  absolute  concep- 
tion of  loneliness,  the  most  awful  thought  of  solitude,  that 
ever  dawned  on  the  mind  of  man,  —  no  Personal  Ruler 
of  the  Universe  through  which  he  was  travelling,  but  an 
inflexible  moral  law  treating  every  one  exactly  after  his 
deserts  ;  and  at  the  goal,  no  comrade,  no  object,  no  idea, 
no  feeling,  —  only  one  unbounded,  unbroken,  and  eternal 
blank.  But  if  in  substance  of  thought  Nirwana  and  anni- 
hilation are  the  same,  they  are  wholly  different  in  the 
form  and  color  under  which  they  are  apprehended,  and 
in  the  mode  of  feeling  and  spirit  of  life  which  they  pro- 
duce. The  perception  of  the  indivisible  unity  of  real 
being  and  the  purely  phenomenal  nature  of  the  self,  —  in 
the  faith  of  Buddha  this  is  the  matchless  diamond  whose 
discovery  sets  every  prepared  slave  free. 


CONFUCIUS. 

AN  important  place  must  be  granted  to  Confucius  in  any 
list  of  the  illustrious  lawgivers  and  exemplars  of  mankind. 
He  also  deserves  mention  among  the  great  lonely  men  in 
the  history  of  the  world.  At  the  age  of  three  years  he 
was  deprived  of  his  father,  received  public  office  at  twenty, 
began  his  course  as  d  teacher  and  reformer  at  twenty-two, 
and  lost  his  mother  at  twenty-four.  He  is  represented  as 
weeping  bitterly  for  his  mother  and  paying  her  every  pos- 
sible tribute.  He  was  grieved  by  the  cruelty  and  injus- 
tice of  the  rulers,  and  by  the  irreverence  and  viciousness 
of  the  people,  and  labored  hard  to  teach  both  classes 
their  duties  as  well  by  example  as  by  precept.  His 


CONFUCIUS.  203 

moral  purity,  his  learning  and  vigor,  while  drawing  atten- 
tion and  disciples  to  him,  also  provoked  the  envy  of  rival 
teachers,  and  the  distrust  of  the  officials  over  him.  He 
was  dismissed  from  office  ;  and,  in  disfavor,  in  private 
life  continued  his  studies  and  labors  for  fifteen  years,  — 
from  his  thirty-fifth  to  his  fiftieth  year.  Then  for  five 
years  he  was  restored  to  the  confidence  of  his  sovereign. 
He  at  length  lost  his  post  as  minister  of  the  court  in  Loo, 
through  the  influence  of  some  wantons  who  induced  the 
ruler  to  violate  and  resent  the  austere  precepts  of  the 
sage  and  abase  him  from  his  honors. 

We  catch  impressive  glimpses  of  his  character  in  the 
sayings  he  has  left.  The  Master  said,  "  The  superior 
man  has  dignified  ease  without  pride ;  the  mean  man  has 
pride  without  dignified  ease."  The  Master  said,  "  Some 
men  of  worth  retire  from  the  world  because  of  disrespect 
and  contradiction."  In  his  fifty-sixth  year  the  injured 
Confucius  turned  from  the  seat  of  his  fond  hopes  and 
started  upon  his  exile.  As  he  went  along  he  looked  back 
on  Loo  with  a  melancholy  heart,  and  gave  vent  to  his 
feelings  in  these  verses :  — 

O,  how  is  it,  azure  Heaven, 
From  my  home  I  thus  am  driven  ; 
Through  the  land  my  way  to  trace, 
With  no  certain  dwelling-place? 
Dark,  all  dark  the  minds  of  men  ! 
Worth  comes  vainly  to  their  ken. 
Hastens  on  my  term  of  years ; 
Desolate,  old  age  appears. 

For  thirteen  weary  years  he  wandered  from  province 
to  province,  using  his  faculties  and  his  renown  to  the 
utmost,  but  lamenting  the  want  of  Court  position  and 
patronage  to  give  his  teachings  more  effect.  Once  he 
said,  "  If  any  of  the  Princes  would  employ  me,  in  the 
course  of  twelve  months  I  should  have  done  something 
considerable."  At  another  time  he  said,  "  Am  I  a  bitter 
gourd  ?  Am  I  to  be  hung  up  out  of  the  way  of  being 
eaten  ? "  The  world  did  not  deal  kindly  with  him  ;  for 
in  every  province  which  he  visited  he  met  disappoint- 
ment j  now  suffering  from  poverty,  now  from  deserted- 


204  SKETCHES   OF   LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

ness,  now  from  persecution.  Once  he  pined  so  sorely 
for  home  and  friends  that  he  cried  aloud,  "  Let  me  return, 
let  me  return."  Again  he  is  said  to  have  been  several 
days  without  anything  to  eat.  While  tarrying  in  Wei  he 
was  so  annoyed  by  applications  to  solve  petty  questions 
and  settle  disputes  that  he  exclaimed,  "  The  bird  chooses 
its  tree,  the  tree  does  not  chase  the  bird," — and  prepared 
to  depart. 

Just  then  came  his  recall  to  Loo.  He  was  sixty-nine 
years  old.  The  remaining  five  years  of  his  life  he  spent 
in  peace  ;  but  not  as  he  would  have  preferred.  Denied 
any  place  of  rank  and  authority,  his  counsels  set  at  naught, 
he  reluctantly  turned  away  from  his  plan  of  tranquillizing 
and  perfecting  the  State  through  the  Sovereign  and  the 
Law,  and  devoted  himself  to  the  slower  moral  accom- 
plishment of  the  same  end  by  completing  and  trans- 
mitting his  literary  works.  Perhaps  one  may  understand 
something  of  his  disappointment  in  being  obliged  to 
abandon  a  legislative  and  executive  mission  for  a  purely 
didactic  and  moral  one,  from  the  following  tribute  paid  to 
him  during  his  life  by  Tsze-kung,  one  of  his  disciples. 
Tsze-kung  said,  "  Were  our  master  in  the  position  of  the 
Prince  of  a  State,  he  would  plant  the  people,  and  forth- 
with they  would  be  established  ;  he  would  lead  them  on, 
and  forthwith  they  would  follow  him  ;  he  would  stimulate 
them,  and  forthwith  they  would  be  harmonious  ;  he  would 
make  them  happy,  and  forthwith,  multitudes  would  resort 
to  his  dominions ;  while  he  lived,  he  would  be  glorious  ; 
when  he  died,  he  would  be  bitterly  lamented." 

Early  one  morning,  it  is  said,  he  rose,  and  with  his 
hands  behind  his  back  dragging  his  staff,  moved  about 
by  his  door,  crooning,  "  The  great  mountain  must  crum- 
ble, the  strong  beam  must  break,  and  the  wise  man  wither 
away  like  a  plant.  In  all  the  provinces  of  the  empire 
there  arises  not  one  intelligent  monarch  who  will  make 
me  his  master.  My  time  has  come  to  die."  He  went  to 
his  couch  and  never  left  it  again.  He  expired  on  the 
eleventh  day  of  March,  four  hundred  and  seventy-eight 
years  before  the  birth  of  Jesus.  Legge,  the  best  of  his 
English  biographers,  —  from  whose  great  work  on  the 


DEMOSTHENES.  205 

Chinese  Classics  the  chief  data  for  this  sketch  have  been 
drawn, — has  painted  the  closing  scene  well,  and  moral- 
ized on  it  not  unkindly,  though,  possibly,  in  a  tone  a  little 
too  professional  and  conventional. 

If  the  end  of  the  great  sage  of  China,  as  he  sank  behind 
the  cloud,  was  melancholy,  it  was  not  unimpressive.  He 
had  drank  the  bitterness  of  disappointed  hopes  :  the 
great  ones  of  the  empire  had  failed  to  accept  his  instruc- 
tions. But  his  mind  was  magnanimous  and  his  heart  was 
serene.  He  was  a  lonely  old  man,  —  parents,  wife,  child, 
friends,  all  gone,  —  but  this  made  the  fatal  message  so 
much  the  more  welcome.  Without  any  expectation  of  a 
future  life,  uttering  no  prayer,  betraying  no  fear,  he  ap- 
proached the  dark  valley  with  the  strength  and  peace  of 
a  well-ordered  will  wisely  resigned  to  Heaven,  beyond  a 
doubt  treasuring  in  his  heart  the  assurance  of  having 
served  his  fellow-men  in  the  highest  spirit  he  knew  and 
with  the  purest  light  he  had. 

For  twenty-five  centuries  he  has  been  as  unreasonably 
venerated  as  he  was  unjustly  neglected  in  his  life.  His 
name  is  on  every  lip  throughout  China,  his  person  in 
every  imagination.  The  thousands  of  his  descendants 
are  a  titled  and  privileged  class  by  themselves.  The  dif- 
fusion and  intensity  of  the  popular  admiration  and  honor 
for  him  are  wonderful.  Countless  temples  are  reared  to 
him,  millions  of  tablets  inscribed  to  him.  His  authority  is 
supreme.  He  is  worshipped  by  the  pupils  of  the  schools, 
the  magistrates,  the  Emperor  himself  in  full  pomp.  Would 
that  a  small  share  of  this  superfluity  had  solace^  some  of 
the  lonesome  hours  he  knew  while  yet. alive  ! 


DEMOSTHENES. 

IN  spite  of  his  burning  patriotism,  great  statesmanship, 
and  unequalled  oratoric  triumphs,  Demosthenes  impresses 
us  as  one  of  the  lonely  personalities  of  history.  His 
exceptional  ethical  depth  and  fervoi,  his  pronounced 
strength  of  character,  the  determination  he  formed  in  his 
orphaned  youth  to  secure  justice  on  his  guardians  for  the 


206       SKETCHES  OF  LONELY  CHARACTERS. 

neglect  and  wrong  he  had  received  from  them,  his  tireless 
devotion  both  to  the  service  of  his  country  and  to  the  art 
of  eloquence,  the  stories  of  his  long  retirement  in  a  cave, 
and  of  his  solitary  pacings  on  the  stormy  sea-shore,  the 
bitterness  with  which  a  host  of  unscrupulous  enemies 
pursued  him  through  his  whole  career,  —  all  combine  to 
show  that  he  was  a  man  marked  by  a  manifold  isolation 
from  his  contemporaries.  How  he  must  have  felt  this, 
when  for  political  reasons  the  Areopagus,  with  such  foul 
injustice,  decreed  him  guilty  of  pecuniary  corruption  ! 
When  his  haters,  leagued  with  the  rabble,  had  secured 
his  banishment,  it  is  said  that  he  shed  tears  as  he  went. 
And  during  his  exile  in  Egina,  he  went  every  day  to  sit 
on  a  cliff  by  the  sea  to  gaze  towards  his  beloved  country. 
After  the  destruction  of  her  liberties,  the  emissaries  of 
the  tyrant  tracked  him  to  the  temple  of  Poseidon,  where, 
turning  at  bay,  he  swallowed  poison,  and  died  at  the  foot 
of  the  altar.  At  a  later  day  his  penitent  countrymen, 
whose  eyes  too  late  were  opened  to  his  nobleness,  built 
him  a  tomb  with  the  inscription,  O  Demosthenes,  had  thy 
power  been  equal  to  thy  wisdom,  the  Macedonian  Mars 
would  never  have  triumphed  in  Greece  ! 


TACITUS. 

WHEN  we  read  the  ominous  lines  in  which  Tacitus  has 
described  the  corruptions  and  cruelties  of  his  countrymen, 
we  form  to  ourselves  a  picture  of  the  historian  as  a  lofty 
and  sombre  soul,  turning  with  angry  disgust  from  the 
stews  and  theatres  and  streets  of  Rome,  from  the  dissem- 
blers, informers,  plotters,  poisoners,  sycophants,  revellers, 
and  murderers  around  him,  —  to  live  in  his  own  thoughts. 
Regardless  of  immediate  advantages,  despising  the  arts 
of  popularity,  he  turned  in  sorrow  and  scorn  from  the 
atrocities  and  beastly  vices  of  pretors  and  emperors,  and 
gave  himself  to  the  lonely  task  of  transmitting  to  future 
times  the  terrible  record  of  his  own.  This  side  of  his  life 
is  revealed  in  his  history.  A  softer  and  fairer  phase  of 
his  soul,  as  it  pleases  us  to  imagine,  appears  expressed  in 


LUCRETIUS.  207 

the  sentiments  he  puts  into  the  mouth  of  Maternus,  in  his 
dialogue  concerning  oratory.  "  Woods  and  groves  and 
loneliness  afford  such  delight  to  me  that  I  reckon  it 
among  the  chief  blessings  of  poetry  that  it  is  cultivated 
far  from  the  noise  and  bustle  of  the  world,  without  a  client 
to  besiege  my  doors  or  a  criminal  to  distress  me  with  his 
tears  and  squalor.  Let  the  sweet  Muses  lead  me  to  their 
soft  retreats,  their  living  fountains,  the  melodious  groves, 
where  I  may  dwell  remote  from  care,  master  of  myself, 
under  no  necessity  of  doing  every  day  what  my  heart  con- 
demns. Let  me  no  more  be  seen  in  the  wrangling  forum 
a  pale  and  anxious  candidate  for  precarious  fame.  Let 
me  live  free  from  solicitude,  a  stranger  to  the  art  of 
promising  legacies  in  order  to  buy  the  friendship  of  the 
great ;  and  when  nature  shall  give  the  signal  to  retire,  may 
I  possess  no  more  than  I  may  bequeath  to  whom  I  will. 
At  my  funeral  let  no  token  of  sorrow  be  seen,  no  pompous 
mockery  of  woe.  Crown  me  with  chaplets  ;  strew  flowers 
on  my  grave ;  and  let  my  friends  erect  no  vain  memorial 
to  tell  where  my  remains  repose." 


LUCRETIUS. 

THE  eloquent  and  mighty  Lucretius,  lifted  far  from  the 
vulgar  ignorance  and  superstition  of  his  time,  revolving 
sublime  thoughts  and  emotions  in  his  powerful  mind, 
leaving  to  posterity  scarcely  a  trace  of  himself,  save  his 
burning  and  wonderful  De  Natura  Rerum,  was  as  solitary 
in  his  time  as  though  he  had  lived  in  an  aerial  car,  an- 
chored miles  above  Olympus.  We  wonder  what  frigid 
and  distressful  isolation  of  his  warm  heart,  or  what  mad- 
dening sorrow,  led  him,  at  the  early  age  of  forty-four,  to 
open  into  the  abyss  the  forbidden  door  of  suicide.  His 
story  and  his  end  furnish  another  illustration  of  the  truth, 
that,  out  of  an  hundred  great  men,  with  ninety  and  nine 
the  penalty  is  more  than  the  prize  ;  the  wreath  on  the  head 
is  less  felt  than  the  thorn  in  the  bosom.  It  is  to  be  hoped 
that  he  enjoyed  a  happy  friendship  with  the  Memmius  to 
whom  he  addressed  his  poem.  We  recognize  the  proof  of  a 


208  SKETCHES   OF    LONELY   CHARACTERS,. 

noble  heart  in  the  generous  enthusiasm  with  which  he 
praises  Epicurus,  Empedocles,  Ennius,  and  others  of  his 
illustrious  predecessors.  We  greatly  revere  the  humanity 
and  heroism  he  showed  in  his  powerful  labors  to  free  men 
from  the  dreadful  curses  of  superstition  so  rife  in  his  time. 
In  the  celebrated  lines  which  form  the  opening  of  his 
second  book  we  cannot  but  believe  \ve  see  a  partial  pic- 
ture of  himself. 

How  sweet  to  stand,  when  tempests  tear  the  main, 

On  the  firm  cliff,  and  mark  the  seaman's  toil  J 

Not  that  another's  danger  soothes  the  soul, 

But  from  such  toil  how  sweet  to  feel  secure  ! 

How  sweet,  at  distance  from  the  strife,  to  view, 

Contending  hosts,  and  hear  the  clash  of  war  ! 

But  sweeter  far,  on  Wisdom's  height  serene, 

Upheld  by  truth,  to  fix  our  firm  abode, 

To  watch  the  giddy  crowd  that,  deep  below, 

Forever  wander  in  pursuit  of  bliss. 

O  blind  and  wretched  mortals  !  —  know  ye  not 

Of  all  ye  toil  for,  Nature  nothing  asks, 

But  for  the  body  freedom  from  disease, 

And  sweet  unanxious  quiet  for  the  mind  ? 

When  we  think  of  the  immense  mind  of  Lucretius  es- 
caping into  the  Invisible,  it  affects  us  as  though  some  lone 
planet  had  rolled  off  the  flaming  walls  of  the  Universe, 
and  sunk  into  the  night. 


CICERO. 

CICERO  is  not  only  one  of  the  most  shining  and  attrac- 
tive personages  of  Roman  history,  he  is  also  one  of  its 
most  original  characters.  The  classic  world  furnishes 
not  another  example  of  such  a  splendid  combination  of 
lalents,  personal  interest,  a  dramatic  career,  a  tragic  end, 
and  immense  fame.  The  rich  complexity  of  his  traits,  his 
sensitive  vanity,  his  ardent  patriotism,  his  genial  human- 
ity, his  philosophical  tastes,  the  empassioned  mobility  of 
his  moods,  his  love  of  natural  scenery,  the  rapid  alter- 
nations of  his  hankering  for  society  and  his  desire  for 
solitude,  give  to  his  spiritual  portrait  a  more  modern  cast 


CICERO.  209 

than  that  of  any  other  of  the  ancients.  He  had  that  dom- 
inant self  consciousness,  that  swift  vehemence  of  action 
and  reaction  on  the  contrasted  thoughts  of  self,  friends, 
foes,  country,  mankind,  duty,  destiny,  which  we  are  ac- 
customed to  regard  as  a  morbid  peculiarity  of  the  genius 
of  later  times. 

Although  of  a  burning  ambition,  and  intensely  subjec- 
tive, he  was  endowed  with  the  noblest  susceptibilities  for 
ail  greatness,  goodness,  truth  and  beauty.  He  lacked 
that  consolidated  pride  or  rebutting  self-sufficingness  ne- 
cessary for  stability  in  his  giddy  position.  He  was  too 
fond  of  notice  and  display  ;  loved  too  well  to  flatter  and 
be  flattered ;  and  was  inconsistent  with  himself,  boastful 
in  prosperity,  supplicating  in  calamity.  His  very  weak- 
nesses, however,  were  at  bottom  more  closely  allied  to 
virtues  than  to  vices.  They  arose  not  from  selfishness  or 
cruelty,  but  from  an  over-strong  regard  for  the  love  and 
honor  of  his  fellow-men.  They  sprang  chiefly  from  the 
sympathetic  vigor  of  his  imagination,  which  successively 
presented  to  him  the  different  aspects  of  things,  persons, 
parties,  policies,  opinions,  so  vividly  that  each  was  ideally 
assumed  for  the  instant.  His  frequent  waverings  were 
largely  due  to  the  fact  that,  unlike  Caesar,  Pompey,  and 
the  most  of  his  great  contemporaries,  he  was  troubled 
with  a  sensitive  conscience.  He  could  not  think  of  single 
objects,  detached  from  each  other  and  from  associations. 
The  laws  of  contrast  and  affinity,  powerfully  active  in  his 
mind,  were  ever  distinguishing  and  joining  all  to  which 
7ie  turned  his  attention.  The  desire  to  be  remembered, 
to  be  loved  and  admired,  was  inseparable  from  his  idea 
of  himself.  Pictures  in  his  own  mind  of  the  appearance 
he  should  make  in  the  eyes  of  mankind  had  an  influence 
always  too  strong  for  his  peace,  perhaps  sometimes  too 
strong  for  his  virtue.  But  surely  this  is  a  fault  more  gra- 
cious and  venial  than  that  stolid  complacency  which  will 
ask  nothing  from  society,  or  that  contempt  which  scorns 
to  be  depressed  and  elated  by  the  condemnation  and  ap- 
proval of  others. 

The  thoughts  and  feelings  of  Cicero  seized  him  with 
such  absorbing  energy,  that,  for  the  moment,  he  was  pos- 


210  SKETCHES    OF    LONELY    CHARACTERS. 

sessed  by  them,  and  impelled  to  give  them  an  expression 
of  proportionate  power.  Accordingly,  in  his  orations,  in 
his  essays,  especially  in  his  letters,  he  freely  pours  him- 
self out.  He  has '  no  secrets  from  his  friends,  holds 
nothing  back  from  his  pen.  His  brother  Quintus,  after 
receiving  an  epistle  from  him,  writes,  "  I  see  you  entire 
in  your  letter."  Few  of  the  characters  of  antiquity  could 
bear  this  unreserved  exposure  as  well  as  he  does.  If  he 
loses  something  by  it  in  the  respect  of  the  censorious  who 
criticise  him,  he  gains  more  in  the  love  of  the  generous 
who  judge  him.  He  transports  us  into  the  midst  of  the 
scenes  he  describes,  into  the  midst  of  his  own  soul.  In 
estimating  others  we  give  the  spectator  data  for  estimat- 
ing us  ;  and  the  heart  of  that  man  is  not  to  be  envied 
who  can,  without  a  glow  of  loving  admiration,  read  those 
honeyed  and  golden  pages  of  Cicero  which  have  sweet- 
ened the  hours  and  enriched  the  souls  of  so  many  of  the 
greatest  men  of  succeeding  ages. 

It  was  as  natural  that  such  a  man  should  sometimes 
recoil  from  the  drudgery,  hate,  envy  and  hollowness  that 
accompanied  the  career  of  ambition  in  the  capital  of  the 
world,  as  it  was  that  he  should  irresistibly  covet  both  pri- 
vate friendship  and  public  place  and  applause.  Weary 
of  the  conflicts  of  the  great  days  of  the  forum,  half  sick 
even  of  the  shouts  and  laurels  of  the  crowds,  he  turned 
his  back  on  the  dust  and  roar  of  Rome,  and,  with  a  joy 
like  that  of  a  modern  poet,  sought  the  shelter  of  some 
secluded  villa.  He  had  villas  in  the  most  retired  and 
beautiful  spots,  at  Antium,  Arpinum,  Formiae,  Tusculum, 
where  he  loved  often  to  retreat  to  soothe  his  ruffled  nerves, 
and  to  study  and  write.  On  reaching  one  of  his  country 
houses  he  is  delightefl  with  the  fresh  beauty  of  everything, 
and  with  the  deep  peace.  He  flies  to  his  books,  ashamed 
of  having  left  them.  His  love  of  solitude  is  so  great  that 
he  never  finds  himself  solitary  enough.  His  clients  and 
acquaintances  come  after  him,  until  he  cries  in  vexation, 
"  This  is  a  public  promenade,  and  not  a  villa."  On  the 
arrival  of  two  bores  he  writes  to  his  dear  Atticus,  "  At 
the  moment  of  this  writing  Sebosus  is  announced.  I 
have  not  finished  my  groan  before  they  tell  me  that  Ar- 


CICERO.  211 

nus  also  has  come.  Is  this  quitting  Rome  ?  Of  what  use 
is  it  to  fly  from  others  and  fall  into  the  hands  of  these  ? " 
In  these  country  retreats  Cicero  enjoyed  the  echoes  of 
his  fame,  and  in  genial  fellowship  with  nature,  letters,  and 
his  absent  friends,  refreshed  himself  for  further  struggles, 
or  labored  to  lift  his  reputation  higher,  and  by  means  of 
philosophical  works  transmit  it  to  the  latest  ages.  Here, 
in  his  adversity,  he  vainly  strove  to  forget  the  world,  to 
care  nothing  for  the  detraction  of  his  enemies  and  the 
neglect  of  his  fellow-citizens.  The  effort  was  vain ;  for, 
wherever  he  went,  he  carried  Rome  in  his  mind,  with  all 
its  passions  and  plots.  He  could  never  forget  the  Roman 
people,  nor  be  indifferent  to  their  opinion  of  him.  The 
hate  and  contempt  of  his  rivals  were  as  torturing  to  him 
as  the  love  of  his  bosom  friends  was  delicious.  His  exile 
was  as  agonizing  as  his  coronation  had  been  ecstatic.  He 
was  made  for  extremes,  unfitted  for  the  serene  medium 
where  self-content  dwells.  Too  painfully  vexed  and  hurt 
by  the  reactions  of  his  excessive  self-esteem,  romantic 
imagination,  and  spiritual  wealth,  on  the  ignorance,  envy, 
and  coldness  of  careless  and  selfish  men,  he  sought  refuge 
in  solitude.  Yet  this  solitude  was  not  true  solitude.  It 
was  but  the  supersedure  of  actual  companionship  by  an 
ideal  one  in  connection  with  which  he  fought  over  the 
battles  of  the  Senate,  relived  the  triumphs  of  the  past,  and 
imagined  greater  ones  for  the  future.  It  is  obvious  that 
he  often  knew,  in  all  its  revulsive  force,  the  sharp  loneli- 
ness of  being  flung  back  on  himself,  inwardly  wounded 
and  deserted.  Every  criticism  disturbed,  every  sneer 
stung  him.  He  was  driven  to  both  extremes,  —  to  con- 
tend in  the  suffocating  throng,  to  meditate  and  sigh  in 
isolation  ;  and  in  both  he  was  happy  and  unhappy,  be- 
longed with  the  most  social  and  with  the  loneliest  of  men. 
The  wittiest  and  most  eloquent  man  of  the  Roman  world, 
who  was  fonder  of  the  festive  board  of  friendship,  or 
shone  more  conspicuously  in  the  thick  of  swaying  multi- 
tudes ?  Musing  on  the  sea-shore  of  Sicily,  going  broken- 
hearted into  banishment,  weeping  in  the  dense  woods  of 
Astura,  stretching  out  his  neck  to  the  sword  of  the 
wretch  who  pursued  him,  who  more  sadly  solitary  ? 


212  SKETCHES    OF   LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

Admit  that  he  sought  personal  glory  too  keenly,  and 
weakly  shrank  from  ridicule  and  neglect ;  the  fault  may 
be  forgiven,  the  weakness  is  even  not  wholly  unlovable 
in  him.  Heap  up  all  the  accusations  to  which  he  is  ob- 
noxious, allow  to  them  everything  that  truth  can  ask;  still 
the  fact  remains  that  he  was  a  miracle  of  genius  and  in- 
dustry, an  ardent  and  illustrious  lover  of  his  country,  of 
philosophy,  of  literature,  of  humanity,  and  of  virtue,  whose 
works  have  scattered  delight  and  benefit  over  many  na- 
tions, through  many  centuries.  It  is  an  ignoble  and  a 
hateful  task  to  try  to  tarnish  his  record  and  create  scorn 
for  him.  His  fame  clusters  with  the  affections  of  the 
greatest  and  best  men  for  two  thousand  years.  It  is  a 
luxury  to  add  to  that  tribute  the  homage  of  one  more 
throbbing  heart. 

He  has  been  stigmatized  as  a  coward.  It  is  unjust. 
For  one  with  his  rich  imaginative  sensibility  it  was  an 
act  of  trajiscendent  courage  to  turn  from  the  ideal  air 
of  philosophy  and  hurl  those  fearful  Philippics  amidst 
the  very  daggers  of  the  myrmidons  of  Antony.  And, 
when  his  last  effort  for  republican  liberty  had  proved  fu- 
tile, did  he  not  heroically  die  on  the  altar  ? 

The  chief  peculiarity  of  the  character  of  Cicero,  in  a 
historico-biographical  point  of  view,  is  the  extent  to  which 
he  anticipated  the  modern  habit  of  over-sensitive  literary 
genius,  the  deliberate  portrayal  of  himself  and  his  feelings 
in  his  writings ;  the  eagerness  with  which  he  strives  to 
show  himself  worthy  of  affection  and  honor,  and  to  secure 
this  prize  alike  from  his  contemporaries  and  posterity.  In 
this  respect  he  is  the  prototype  of  Petrarch,  who -again 
is  the  prototype  of  Rousseau  and  of  all  who  trace  him  in 
his  line. 

Those  who  wish  to  make  a  study  of  this  great  man,  — 
so  sweet  and  commanding  despite  his  foibles,  —  will  find 
no  lack  of  helps  in  the  works  of  his  numerous  biographers 
and  critics.  Middleton,  in  his  Life  and  Letters  of  Cicero, 
treats  him  with  idolatry ;  Niebuhr,  in  his  Vortrage  iiber 
Romische  Geschichte,  with  enthusiasm  ;  Drumann,  in  his 
Geschichte  Roms,  with  hate ;  Abeken,  in  his  Cicero  in 
Seinen  Briefer^  with  generouo  impartiality ;  Mommsen,  in 


DANTE.  213 

his  Romische  Geschichte,  with  insolence ;  Merivale,  in  his 
History  of  the  Romans  under  the  Empire,  with  a  fairness 
rather  severe  than  merciful ;  Forsyth,  in  his  Life  of  Cicero, 
with  loving  candor ;  Boissier,  in  his  Ciceron  et  Ses  Amis, 
with  affectionate  justice.  This  work  of  Boissier  is  the 
most  interesting,  emotional,  and  just  of  the  whole.  One 
lays  it  down  with  the  feeling  that  Cicero  —  the  brilliant, 
brave,  boastful,  shrinking,  timid,  vain,  garrulous,  learned, 
wise,  unhappy,  tender,  pious,  immortal  Cicero  —  deserves 
to  be  blamed  somewhat,  pitied  a  little,  excused  a  great 
deal,  admired  more,  praised  and  loved  most  of  all,  by  the 
world  of  his  fascinated  and  grateful  readers. 

BOETHIUS. 

THE  author  of  the  "Consolation  of  Philosophy,9  Boe- 
thius,  has  a  place  singularly  by  himself  among  men,  in 
the  fame  of  his  beautiful  work.  After  holding  at  the 
court  of  Theodoric,  king  of  the  Ostrogoths,  the  offices  of 
Consul  and  Senator,  with  brilliant  ability,  he  fell  into 
undeserved  disfavor  with  his  sovereign.  His  unflinching 
honesty,  together  with  his  conspicuous  kindness,  courage, 
and  watchfulness,  brought  a  pack  of  informers  and  other 
base  men  against  him.  A  sentence  of  confiscation  and 
death  was  passed  on  him  unheard.  During  his  imprison- 
ment he  wrote  that  precious  treatise  on  the  solaces  of 
wisdom,  which  has  strengthened  many  a  kindred  sufferei 
from  injustice  since.  He  underwent  a  horrible  death, 
being  first  tortured  by  a  cord  drawn  around  his  head  till 
the  eyes  burst  from  their  sockets,  and  then  beaten  with 
clubs  till  he  expired.  When  we  trace  the  lofty  medita- 
tions with  which  he  comforted  himself  in  his  prison,  and 
compare  his  sweet,  generous  mind  and  heroic  virtues  with 
the  brutal  ferocity  of  the  jealous  mediocrities  around  him, 
a  tragic  loneliness  associates  itself  with  the  figure  of  him 
presented  by  the  historic  imagination. 

DANTE. 

DANTE  ALIGHIERI  is  the  most  monarchic  figure  in  lit- 
erary history.  Awe  and  Love  now  accompany  the  shade 


214  SKETCHES   OF    LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

of  the  untamable  Ghibelline  on  the  journey  of  his  fame, 
as  he  pictured  Virgil  guiding  his  steps  through  the  other 
world.  That  stern,  sad,  worn  face,  made  so  well  known 
to  us  by  art,  looks  on  the  passing  generations  of  men 
with  a  woful  pity,  masking  the  pain  and  want  which  are 
too  proud  to  beg  for  sympathy,  extorting,  chiefly  from  the 
most  royal  souls,  a  royal  tribute  of  wonder  and  affection. 
Some  one  has  said  that  Dante  was  "  a  born  solitary,  a 
grand,  impracticable  solitary.  He  could  not  live  with 
the  Florentines  ;  he  could  not  live  with  Gemma  Donati ; 
he  could  not  live  with  Can  Grande  della  Scala."  The 
truth  in  the  remark  is,  perhaps,  a  little  misleading.  It  is 
certainly  not  strange  that  an  exile  should  be  unable  to 
live  at  home  with  the  victorious  party  of  his  persecutors ; 
that  a  man  absorbed  in  an  ideal  world  should  ill  agree 
with  a  prosaic  and  shrewish  wife  ;  or  that  the  demeaning 
favors  of  a  patron  should  gall  a  generous  spirit.  Dante 
was  no  separatist,  either  in  theory  or  in  native  temper 
of  soul,  though  he  was  lonely  in  experience  and  fate. 
The  inward  life  was  to  him  the  only  constant  end  ;  the 
ecstasy  of  the  divine  vision  the  only  sufficing  good. 
Memory,  thought,  and  faith  were  his  three  cities  of  refuge. 
His  intellect  was  too  piercing,  his  disposition  too  earnest, 
his  affections  too  sensitive  and  tenacious,  his  prejudices 
and  resentments  too  vehement  and  implacable,  for  satis- 
factory intercourse  with  others  to  be  easy.  "  He  delight- 
ed," Boccaccio  says,  "  in  being  solitary  and  apart  from 
the  world,  that  his  contemplations  might  not  be  interrupt- 
ed. And  when  he  was  in  company,  if  he  had  taken  up 
any  subject  of  meditation  'that  pleased  him,  he  would 
make  no  reply  to  any  question  asked,  until  he  had  con- 
firmed or  rejected  the  fancy  that  haunted  him."  Ben- 
venuto  da  Imola  speaks  of  his  having  been  seen  to  stand 
at  a  book-stall  in  Siena,  studying  a  rare  work,  from  mat- 
ins till  noon  ;  so  absorbed  in  it  as  to  be  unconscious  of 
the  passing  of  a  bridal  procession  with  music  and  love- 
poems,  such  as  he  especially  delighted  in.  Owing  to  the 
extraordinary  scope,  intensity,  and  pertinacity  of  his 
states  of  consciousness,  he  was  both  an  exceedingly  lov- 
ing and  magnanimous,  and  an  exceedingly  irascible  and 


DANTE.  215 

revengeful  man.  If  he  was  sensitively  exacting,  he  could 
also  he  regally  self-sufficing.  To  such  a  nature  fit  society 
would  be  delicious,  but  hard  to  find  ;  unfit  society,  easy 
to  find,  but  insufferable ;  solitude,  a  natural  refuge,  not 
less  medicinal  than  welcome. 

The  different  kinds  of  spiritual  loneliness  meet  in  a 
more  striking  combination  in  Dante  than  in  almost  any 
other  man.  He  knew,  in  a  distinguishing  degree,  the 
loneliness  of  individuality  ;  for  he  had  a  most  pronounced 
originality  of  character,  all  of  whose  peculiar  features  the 
circumstances  of  his  age  and  life  tended  to  exaggerate. 
Altogether,  with  his  towering  self-respect,  his  deep  sense 
of  his  own  prophetic  office,  his  soft,  proud,  burning  rev- 
eries, it  would  be  hard  to  find  a  more  intrinsically  isolated 
personality.  He  knew  the  loneliness  of  genius,  his  mind 
being  of  a  scale  and  altitude  far  aloof  from  those  about 
him.  Among  the  peaks  of  human  greatness,  the  solitary 
cone  of  the  intellect  of  Dante  shoots  highest  into  the  sky, 
though  several  others  touch  a  wider  horizon  and  show  a 
richer  landscape.  He  knew  the  loneliness  of  love.  The 
wondrous  fervency  and  exaltation  of  his  sacred  passion 
for  Beatrice,  no  one  else  could  enter  into  :  he  could  speak 
of  it  to  no  ordinary  comrade.  In  his  own  words,  "  The 
first  time  I  heard  her  voice,  I  was  smitten  with  such  de- 
light that  I  broke  away  from  the  company  I  was  in,  like 
a  drunken  man,  and  retired  within  the  solitude  of  my 
chamber  to  meditate  upon  her."  He  knew  the  loneliness 
of  a  passionate,  idealizing  grief.  He  says,  "  I  was  affect- 
ed by  such  profound  grief,  that,  rushing  away  from  the 
crowd,  I  sought  a  lonely  spot  wherein  to  bathe  tke  earth 
with  my  most  bitter  tears  ;  and  when,  after  a  space,  these 
tears  were  somewhat  abated,  betaking  myself  to  my  cham- 
ber where  I  could  give  vent  to  my  passion  unheard,  I  fell 
asleep,  weeping  like  a  beaten  child."  And  again  he 
says,  — 

Ashamed,  I  go  apart  from  men, 
And  solitary,  weeping,  I  lament, 
And  call  on  Beatrice,  "  Art  thou  dead?" 

He  knew  the  loneliness  of  an  absorbing  aim.     The  pro- 
duction of  his  immortal  poem,  in  which  heaven  and  earth 


2l6  SKETCHES   OF   LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

were  constrained  to  take  a  part,  and  which,  he  says,  kept 
him  lean  many  years,  implies  immense  studies  and  toil. 
Such  an  exhaustive  masterpiece  is  not  more  a  result  of 
inspiration  than  of  unwearied  touches  of  critical  art.  Ht 
knew  the  loneliness  of  exile.  Banished  by  party  hate,  he 
always  yearned  after  his  dear  Florence ;  upbraided  her 
that  she  "  treated  worst  those  who  loved  her  best "  ;  and, 
in  his  very  epitaph,  called  her  the  "  of  all,  least-loving 
mother."  He  wandered  in  foreign  lands,  from  place  to 
place,  almost  literally  begging  his  way,  "  unwillingly  show- 
ing the  wound  of  fortune,"  tasting  the  saltness  of  the 
bread  eaten  at  other  men's  tables,  and  at  last  dying  in  a 
strange  city.  He  knew  the  loneliness  of  schemes  and 
dreams  reaching  far  beyond  his  own  time,  embracing  the 
unity  and  liberty  of  his  country ;  over  whose  distraction 
and  enslavement  others  slept  in  their  sloth  or  revelled  in 
their  pleasures.  And  finally,  he  knew  the  loneliness  of  a 
transcendent  religious  faith,  which  his  imagination  con- 
verted into  a  vision  ever  recalling  his  inner  eye  from  the 
gairish  vanities  of  the  world. 

Before  Dante  was  driven  out  by  his  fellow-citizens, 
Beatrice  had  died ;  his  best  friend,  Guido  Cavalcanti, 
had  died ;  and  he  had  lost,  by  the  plague,  two  boys,  aged 
eight  and  twelve  years.  Carrying  these  scars,  and  another 
as  dark,  inflicted  by  the  disappointment  of  his  patriotic 
hopes,  he  went  forth  never  to  return.  Although  he  awak 
ened  interest  everywhere,  his  tarryings  were  comparatively 
brief.  He  knew  his  own  greatness.  His  unbending  king- 
liness,  his  serious  and  persistent  sincerity,  unfitted  him  for 
intercourse  either  with  vapid  triflers  in  the  crowd,  or  with 
haughty  mediocrities  in  high  places.  God  made  him  in- 
capable of  fawning,  or  playing  a  part.  He  must  appear 
as  he  was,  act  as  he  felt,  speak  as  he  thought.  It  is  ob- 
vious from  his  history  that  he  profoundly  attracted  the 
superior  men  with  whom  he  came  in  contact.  This  is  not 
inconsistent  with  the  fact  that  speedy  breaches  occurred 
between  him  and  nearly  all  of  them.  He  broke  with 
some  because  they  betrayed  the  cause  of  his  country ; 
with  others,  on  account  of  personal  incompatibilities. 
Who  possessed  fineness  and  tenaciousness  of  spiritual 


DANTE.  2  T  7 

fibre,  richness  and  energy  of  mental  resources,  sobriety 
and  loftiness  of  imaginative  contemplation,  to  act  and  re- 
act in  unison  with  the  soul  of  Dante  Alighieri  ? 

He  had  a  warm  intimacy  with  the  imposing  and  bril- 
liant military  adventurer,  Uguccione  della  Faggiuola,  and 
offered  him  the  dedication  of  the  "  Inferno."  There 
appears  to  have  been  a  strong  attachment  between  him 
and  Giotto.  One  cannot  look  on  the  recovered  portrait 
of  Dante  by  Giotto,  without  feeling  that  it  must  have  been 
drawn  by  a  hand  of  love.  Benvenuto  da  Imola  relates, 
that  one  day,  when  Giotto  was  painting  a  chapel  at 
Padua,  —  the  wondrous  frescos  which  at  this  day  make 
the  traveller  linger  on  them  with  a  sweet  pain,  unwilling 
to  tear  himself  away,  —  Dante  came  in,  and  the  painter 
took  the  poet  home  with  him. 

When  first  banished,  he  was  generously  welcomed  in 
Lunigiana  by  the  Marquis  Mprello  Malaspina.  Before 
long,  however,  he  went  to  enjoy  the  splendid  hospitality 
of  the  young  lord  of  Verona,  Can  Grande  della  Scala. 
In  a  letter  to  Can  Grande,  dedicating  the  first  cantos  of 
the  "  Paradiso  "  to  him,  he  says,  "  At  first  sight  I  became 
your  most  devoted  friend."  He  lays  down  the  proposition, 
that  "  unequals,  as  well  as  equals,  may  be  bound  by  the 
sacred  bond  of  friendship."  In  support  of  this,  he  gives 
several  arguments  ;  one  of  which  is,  that  even  the  infinite 
inequality  of  God  and  man  does  not  prevent  friendship 
between  them.  The  grandees  at  the  court  looked  down 
on  Dante  from  their  titular  elevation  :  he  looked  down  on 
them  from  his  intrinsic  superiority.  One  day,  Can  Grande 
said  to  him,  concerning  a  favorite  buffoon,  "  How  is  it  that 
this  silly  fellow  can  make  himself  loved  by  all,  and  that 
thou,  who  art  said  to  be  so  wise,  canst  not?"  Dante 
replied,  "  Because  all  creatures  delight  in  their  own  re- 
semblance." The  offended  poet  departed.  He  paid  a 
long  visit  to  Fra  Maricone  in  the  convent  of  Santa  Croce 
di  Fonte  Avellana,  where  he  wrote  much  of  his  matchless 
poem.  Later  he  found  a  pleasant  refuge  with  his  good 
friend,  Bosone  da  Gubbio,  in  the  castle  of  Colmollaro. 
But  his  last,  kindest,  most  faithful  patron  and  friend  was 
the  noble  ruler  of  Ravenna,  the  high-souled  and  culti- 
10 


2l8  SKETCHES    OF   LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

vated  Guido  Novello  da  Polenta,  Here  he  spent  the  last 
seven  years  of  his  life,  furnished  with  a  fitting  home,  his 
wants  supplied,  treated  personally  with  deference  anu 
love,  employed  in  honorable  offices.  When  he  died, 
his  remains  were  honored  with  an  imposing  funeral. 
His  body,  robed  as  a  Franciscan  friar,  lay  in  state  in 
the  palace  of  the  Polentas  ;  his  hands  resting  on  the  open 
Bible;  a  golden  lyre,  with  broken  chords,  lying  at  his  feet 
The  erection  of  a  becoming  monument  was  prevented 
only  by  the  misfortunes  and  banishment  of  Guido  him- 
self. 

In  spite,  however,  of  these  exceptions,  Dante's  word  is 
true,  "It  is  rare  for  exiles  to  meet  with  friends."  The 
picture  of  him  in  Paris,  deserted,  destitute,  hungry ;  sit- 
ting on  straw  in  the  Latin  Quarter  listening  to  the  Uni- 
versity lecturers ;  admitted,  after  extemporaneously  de- 
fending propositions  on  fourteen  different  subjects,  to  the 
highest  degree,  and  obliged  to  forego  the  honor  for  lack 
of  means  to  pay  the  fee,  yet  consoled  by  the  hope  of  an 
enduring  fame,  is  pathetic  and  exciting.  How  touching, 
too,  are  his  words  in  the  treatise  "De  Vulgari  Eloquio"  ! 
—  "I  grieve  over  all  sufferers ;  but  I  have  most  pity  for 
those,  whoever  they  may  be,  who,  languishing  in  exile, 
never  see  their  native  land  again,  except  in  dreams." 
Yet,  with  the  force  of  his  invincible  soul,  he  rallies  upon 
divine  resources,  and  enjoys  ideal  substitutes  and  equiv- 
alents for  what  he  is  deprived  of  in  actuality.  "  Shall  I 
not  enjoy,"  he  exclaims,  "the  light  of  the  sun  and  the 
stars  ?  Shall  I  not  be  able  to  speculate  on  most  delight- 
ful truth  under  whatever  sky  I  may  be  ? " 

There  are  truly  two  Dantes,  —  one,  the  young  Dante 
of  the  "  Vita  Nuova " ;  the  other,  the  mature  Dante  of 
the  "  Divina  Commedia."  The  first  is  represented  in  the 
portrait  by  Giotto,  with  its  meditative  depth,  feminine  soft- 
ness and  sadness ;  the  second,  in  the  more  familiar  tra- 
ditional effigy,  with  its  haggard,  recalcitrant  features, 
iron  firmness,  and  burning  intensity,  its  mystic  woe  and 
supernal  pity.  Both  of  these  characters  are  abundantly 
revealed  by  his  own  pen,  since  almost  everything  he 
wrote  has  an  autobiographic  value,  both  direct  and  in- 


DANTE.  219 

direct.  He  often  narrates  the  events  of  his  life,  and 
records  his  feelings  and  judgments,  in  the  first  person. 
Furthermore,  the  contents  of  his  works  take  the  form  of 
experiences  passing  through  his  soul,  and  reproduced  by 
his  art  in  stereoscopic  photographs  that  at  once  reflect 
the  delicate  lineaments  of  his  genius  and  betray  the  tre- 
mendous power  of  his  passions. 

The  dominant  characteristic,  in  a  moral  aspect,  of  the 
younger  Dante,  —  of  Dante  as  he  was  by  nature  and  cul- 
ture, —  is  the  tenderest  and  most  impassioned  ideal  love, 
frankly  exposing  itself  on  every  side,  and  seeking  sympa- 
thy. He  speaks,  confesses,  implores,  with  an  exuberant 
impulsiveness  of  self-reference  like  that  of  Cicero,  whom 
he  studied  and  loved ;  and  he  describes  his  painful  con- 
sciousness of  loving  and  thirst  for  love,  with  a  fulness  of 
self-portrayal  like  that  of  Petrarch.  This  phase  in  the 
character  and  life  of  Dante  has  been  for  the  most  part 
overlooked;  but  no  one  can  read  his.  "Vita  Nuova" 
and  his  "  Canzoniere,"  with  reference  to  this  point,  and 
fail  to  recognize  it.  Free  from  the  foibles  of  Cicero  and 
the  extravagances  of  Petrarch,  fully  possessed  of  what 
was  best  and  most  original  in  them,  Dante,  in  his  first 
literary  development,  is  the  true  link  between  the  humane 
philosopher  of  Rome  and  the  romantic  poet  of  Vaucluse. 
He  had  the  learned  scope  and  effusive  sympathy  of  the 
one  ;  and  he  had  the  clinging,  introspective  Christian  sen- 
timent and  faith  of  the  other.  The  Romantic  Literature, 
—  between  which  and  the  Classic  Literature  Petrarch 
stands  with  a  hand  on  either,  —  that  glorious  outbreak 
of  the  spirit  of  chivalry  and  letters  and  song,  under  the 
breath  of  the  Provencal  bards,  contains  little  or  nothing 
of  value  which  may  not  be  found  clearly  pronounced  in 
the  youthful  poems  of  Dante.  He  says  that,  when  his 
lady  passes  by,  — 

Love  casts  on  villain  hearts  a  blight  so  strong, 
That  all  their  thoughts  are  numbed  and  stricken  low ; 
And  whom  he  grants  to  gaze  on  her  must  grow 
A  thing  of  noble  stature,  or  must  die. 

Humboldt  has  expatiated  on  his  sensibility  to  the  charms 
of  nature,  as  evinced  in  the  truth  and  grace  of  his  inci- 


220  SKETCHES   OF    LONEL\    CHARACTERS. 

dental  descriptions.  Tradition  also  proves  his  Live  of 
valleys,  forests,  high  prospects,  and  wild  solitude,  by 
identifying  many  of  his  tarrying-places  during  his  exile 
with  the  most  secluded  and  romantic  spots.  The  inex- 
tinguishable relish  of  revenge  and  disdain,  the  ferocity  of 
hate  embodied  in  such  passages  as  the  description  of 
Filippo  Argenti,  by  which  Dante  is  popularly  recognized, 
are  not  more  unapproachable  in  their  way  than  the  numer- 
ous passages  of  an  earlier  date  in  which  he  expresses  his 
love,  his  unhappiness,  his  craving  for  attention  and  sym- 
pathy, are  in  theirs.  Nothing  can  surpass  the  confiding 
•softness  of  his  trustful  and  supplicatory  unveiling  of  the 
tender  sentiments  of  his  heart.  He  shuts  himself  "  in 
his  chamber,  and  weeps  till  he  looks  like  one  nigh  to 
death  "  ;  his  "  eyes  are  surrounded  with  purple  circles 
from  his  excessive  suffering."  —  "  Sinful  is  the  man  whc 
does  not  feel  for  me  and  comfort  me."  He  even  takes 
"the  most  distasteful  path,  that  of  invoking  and  throwing 
myself  into  the  arms  of  pity."  — "  Seeking  an  outlet 
for  my  grief  in  verse,  I  composed  the  canzone  begin- 
ning— 

The  eyes  that  mourn  in  pity  of  the  heart 
Such  pain  have  suffered  from  "their  ceaseless  tears, 
That  they  are  utterly  subdued  at  last : 
And  would  I  still  the  ever-gnawing  smart 
That  down  to  death  is  leading  all  my  years, 
Forth  in  wild  sobs  must  I  my  misery  cast 

"  In  order  that  the  conflict  within  me  might  not  remain 
unknown,  save  to  the  wretched  man  who  felt  it,  I  resolved 
to  compose  a  sonnet  which  should  express  my  pitiable 
state."  —  "  My  self-pity  wounds  me  as  keenly  as  my  grief 
itself." 

My  bitter  life  wearies  and  wears  me  so, 
That  every  man  who  sees  my  deathly  hue 
Still  seems  to  say,  "  I  do  abandon  thee." 

Such  was  the  native  Dante,  exquisitely  affectionate,  sen- 
sitive, confiding,  melancholy,  lonesome,  baring  his  weak- 
nesses, and  yearning  for  sympathy. 
What  an  incredible  exterior  change,  when  we  turn  from 


DANTE.  221 

this  romantic  portrait,  and  contemplate  the  elder  Dante  j 
Dante  as  he  became  in  self-defence  against  the  cruel  in- 
justice and  hardships  he  endured !  Then  he  blushed 
with  shame  :  a  look  from  Beatrice  made  him  faint :  he 
said,  "  My  tears  and  sighs  of  anguish  so  waste  my  heart 
when  I  am  alone,  that  any  one  who  heard  me  would  feel 
compassion  for  me."  Now,  encased  in  his  seven-fold 
shield  of  pride,  he  scorns  the  shafts  of  wrong  and  of  ridi- 
cule, saying,  "  I  feel  me  on  all  sides  well-squared  to  for- 
tune's blows."  He  never  lost  his  interior  tenderness  for 
humanity  ;  his  enthusiasm  for  the  sublime  sentiments  of. 
poesy  and  religion ;  his  vital  loyalty  to  truth,  beauty,  lib- 
erty. But,  towards  the  frowns  of  his  foes  and  the  indif- 
ference of  the  world,  he  put  on  an  adamantine  self-respect 
which  shed  all  outward  blows.  He  incarnates,  as  he  is 
commonly  seen,  an  unconquerable  pride,  lofty  as  the  top 
of  Etna,  hard  as  its  petrified  lava,  hot  as  its  molten  core, 
but  interspersed  with  touches  of  pity  and  love  as  surpris- 
ingly soft  and  beautiful  as  though  lilies  and  violets  sud- 
denly bloomed  out  of  the  scoriae  on  the  edge  of  its  crater. 
His  contemporary,  Giovanni  Villani,  describes  him  as  "  a 
scholar,  haughty  and  disdainful,  who  knew  not  how  to 
deal  gracefully  with  the  ignorant."  He  himself,  in  his 
great  poem,  makes  his  ancestor  Cacciaguida  foretell,  that 
of  all  his  future  calamities,  what  will  try  him  most  is  "  the 
vile  company  amidst  which  he  will  be  thrown."  Disgust 
and  scorn  of  the  plebeian  herds  of  aimless,  worthless 
men,  however,  never  became  an  end  with  him,  a  pleasure 
in  itself,  but  merely  a  means  by  which  he  protected  him- 
self against  the  wrongs  and  lack  of  appreciation  he  suf- 
fered. They  served  as  an  ideal  foil  by  which  he  kept 
himself  on  the  eminence  where  God  had  set  him,  —  saved 
his  nobility  and  dignity  from  sinking  even  with  his  for- 
tunes. This  is  what  distinguishes  the  office  of  a  generous 
pride  from  that  arrogant  and  poisonous  egotism  which' 
feeds  itself  with  misanthropy.  The  pride  which  nourished 
the  virtue  and  undying  usefulness  of  Dante,  which  helped 
to  keep  his  genius  from  decay,  and  alone  kept  his  will 
from  drooping,  has  no  alliance  with  the  stung  and  exud- 
ing conceit  of  selfish  men-haters.  This  is  why  the  Jiau- 


222  SKETCHES   OF   LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

teur  is  grand  in  him  which  .in  .a  Menecrates  is  ludicrous, 
and  in  a  Swift  detestable. 

In  the  twenty-fifth  canto  of  the  last  part  of  the  "  Divi- 
na  Commedia,"  Dante  prophesies  that  he  shall  return  to 
ungrateful  Florence,  and  receive  the  laurel-wreath  beside 
the  font  where  he  was  baptized.  Then,  in  present  default 
of  this  fruition,  he  makes  St.  Peter  crown  him  in  Para- 
dise. What  a  royal  comfort  to  give  himself  this  ideal 
meed  !  What  matchless  courage  to  dare  to  paint  the 
fruition  with  his  own  hand,  and  hold  the  picture  before 
mankind  !  He  always  felt  himself  in  others  with  wonder- 
ful keenness,  and  passionately  coveted  love,  and  its  phan- 
tom,—  fame.  But  after  his  disappointments  and  exile, 
he  would  not  bend  to  ask  for  either.  In  the  free  realm 
of  the  soul  he  imperiously  appropriated  them,  and  bade 
posterity  ratify  the  boons. 

The  progress  of  his  poem  mirrors  the  perfecting  of  his 
character.  In  the  "  Inferno  "  he  says  :  — 

Now  needs  thy  best  of  man  ; 
For  not  on  downy  plumes  nor  under  shade 
Of  canopy  reposing,  fame  is  won, 
Without  which  whosoe'er  consumes  his  days 
Leaveth  such  vestige  of  himself  on  earth 
As  smoke  in  air  or  foam  upon  the  wave. 

But  at  length,  in  the  "  Paradiso,"  weaned  from  the  fretful 
Babel,  calmly  pitying  the  ignoble  strife  and  clamor,  he 
looks  down,  from  the  exalted  loneliness  of  his  own  relig- 
ious mind,  on  the  fond  anxiety,  the  vain  arguments,  the 
poor  frenzies  of  mortal  men. 

In  statutes  one,  and  one  in  medicine, 

Was  hunting  :  this,  the  priesthood  followed  ;  that, 

By  force  of  sophistry,  aspired  to  rule  ; 

To  rob,  another  ;  and  another  sought, 

By  civil  business,  wealth  ;  one,  moiling,  lay 

Tangled  in  net  of  sensual  delight ; 

And  one  to  wistless  indolence  resigned. 

What  time  from  all  these  empty  things  escaped, 

With  Beatrice,  I  thus  gloriously 

Was  raised  aloft,  and  made  the  guest  of  heaven. 

The  beginning  is  the  most  easily  appreciated  by  the  vui- 


PETRARCH.  223 

gar ;  the  end  is  the  least  popular,  because  it  is  the  most 
original  and  marvellous.  The  "  Inferno  "  is  sculpture  ; 
the  "  Purgatorio,"  painting  ;  the  "  Paracliso,"  music.  The 
scene  rises  from  contending  passions,  through  purifying 
penance,  to  perfected  love.  An  excited  multitude,  gazing, 
wander  with  him  through  the  first ;  a  smaller  and  quiet- 
er throng  accompany  him  over  the  second  ;  a  select, 
ever-lessening  number  follow  him  up  the  third ;  and  at 
last  he  is  left  on  the  summit,  alone,  rapt  in  the  beatific 
vision. 

PETRARCH. 

SOME  peculiarities,  generally  in  literary  history  traced- 
to  Petrarch,  have  given  him  the  reputation  of  more  orig- 
inality as  a  man  and  as  an  author,  more  novelty  and  power 
of  character,  than  he  really  possessed.  Still  his  influence, 
both  personal  and  literary,  has  been  remarkable.  And 
his  tender  philanthropy,  ardent  patriotism,  romantic  mel- 
ancholy, the  music  of  his  plaintive  though  monotonous 
lyre,  combine  to  lend  a  deep  interest  alike  to  his  person 
and  his  story. 

The  love  of  friends,  the  chivalric  love  of  woman,  the 
love  of  fame,  the  love  of  books,  the  love  of  the  great  men 
of  the  past,  the  love  of  nature,  the  love  of  solitude,  — 
these  were  the  dominant  sentiments  in  the  soul  of  Pe- 
trarch. Of  course  all  these  sentiments  had  been  felt  and 
expressed  many  times  before.  Chivalry,  which  in  its  es- 
sence is  an  imaginative  heightening  of  sympathy,  gave 
them  an  especial  enrichment  and  refinement,  a  vividness 
and  an  exaltation  not  known  in  previous  ages.  The  Trou- 
badours, the  immediate  predecessors  of  Petrarch,  had 
sung  the  chief  of  them  with  variety  and  emphasis,  bor- 
rowing something  from  the  classic  traditions,  but  adding 
more  through  that  union  of  ecclesiastical  Christianity  and 
Germanic  feeling  which  formed  the  peculiar  genius  of 
knighthood.  In  the  works  of  Petrarch  the  sentiments 
of  classic  philosophy  and  poesy  blend  with  the  sentiments 
of  the  best  Christian  Fathers  who  had  written  on  the 
monastic  life,  and  with  the  sentiments  of  the  Provencal 


224  SKETCHES   OF   LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

bards.  His  originality  and  importance  consist,  first,  in 
the  peculiar  combination  he  gave  to  these  pre-existing 
ideas  and  feelings ;  secondly,  in  the  new  tone  and  accent 
lent  to  them  by  his  personal  character  and  experience ; 
and  thirdly,  in  the  fresh  impetus  imparted  for  their  repro- 
duction and  circulation  in  subsequent  authors  by  the  pop- 
ularity of  his  writings  and  by  the  conspicuousness  of  his 
position  as  the  reviver  of  letters  at  the  close  of  the  Dark 
Age. 

The  strength  of  Petrarch  is  his  sympathetic  wealth  of 
consciousness.  His  learning,  eloquence,  and  love  of  lib- 
erty, his  gentleness  and  magnanimity,  his  purity,  height, 
and  constancy  of  feeling  are  admirable.  He  says  :  — 

And  new  tears  born  of  old  desires  declare 

That  still  I  am  as  I  was  wont  to  be, 

And  that  a  thousand  changes  change  not  me. 

His  weaknesses  are  an  exorbitant,  all-too-susceptible 
vanity,  the  prominence  of  a  complacency  forever  alternat- 
ing between  fruition  and  mortification,  the  painful  min- 
gling of  an  effeminate  self-fondling  with  a  querulous  self- 
dissatisfaction.  The  Petrarchan  strain  has  been  caught 
and  echoed  interminably  since  his  day.  The  morbid  sub- 
jective school,  in  some  sense  founded  by  him,  has  been 
continued  by  Rousseau,  St.  Pierre,  Chateaubriand,  the 
young  Goethe,  Byron,  Lenau,  and  scores  of  other  power- 
ful authors,  who  have  carried  it  much  further  than  he,  and 
made  it  more  and  more  complicated  by  additionally  inter- 
weaving their  own  idiosyncrasies.  Still  above  the  jar  of 
tones  the  fundamental  chords  he  sounded  are  clearly  dis- 
tinguishable ;  a  troubled  excess  of  sensibility,  exaggerated 
aspirations,  separation  from  the  crowd,  a  high-strung  love 
of  nature  and  seclusion,  all  grouped  around  an  unhappy 
and  importunate  sense  of  self. 

Petrarch  was  fitted  by  his  poetic  temperament  to  enter 
into  the  charms  of  the  withdrawn  scenes  of  nature,  beau- 
tiful and  wild  landscapes,  with  an  intensity  uncommon  in 
his  day;  in  ours,  partly  through  his  influence,  more  fre- 
quent. The  unaffectedness  of  his  taste  for  nature  is 
shown  by  the  exquisite  loveliness  of  the  sites  he  chose  for 


PETRARCH.  225 

his  residences  at  Vaucluse,  Parma,  Garignano  and  Arqua. 
For  sixteen  years  he  spent  much  of  his  time  in  the  pic- 
turesque seclusion  of  Vaucluse.  This  romantic  valley, 
with  its  celebrated  fountain,  sixteen  miles  from  Avignon, 
will  forever  be  associated  with  his  tender  passion  and  his 
charming  fame.  In  this  profound  retreat,  amid  this  rug- 
ged scenery,  "  in  a  shady  garden  formed  for  contempla- 
tion and  sacred  to  Apollo,"  or  in  a  deeper  grotto  at  the 
source  of  the  swift  Sorga,  which  he  was  "  confident  re- 
sembled the  place  where  Cicero  went  to  declaim,"  he 
roamed  and  mused,  he  nursed  and  sang  his  love  for  Laura. 
He  said  his  disgust  of  the  frivolousness  and  heartlessness, 
plottings  and  vices  of  the  city  drove  him  for  the  soothing 
delights  of  the  country  to  this  retired  haunt,  which  had 
the  virtue  of  giving  freedom  to  his  heart  and  wings  to  his 
imagination.  After  his  frequent  journeys  on  literary  and 
state  commissions  to  the  courts  of  princes  in  famous 
cities,  he  always  hurried  back  to  his  beloved  Vaucluse, 
comparing  his  condition  to  "  that  of  a  thirsty  stag,  who, 
stunned  with  the  noise  of  the  dogs,  seeks  the  cool  stream 
and  the  silent  shade."  Here  he  passed  much  time  alone, 
among  the  rocks  and  defiles,  and  by  the  brink  of  the 
fountain  ;  also  much  time  with  his  friend  Philip  de  Cabas- 
sole.  These  two  friends  often  strolled  through  the  val- 
ley and  over  the  cliffs,  discussing  literary  and  philosophi- 
cal questions,  until  their  servants,  alarmed  at  their  long 
absence,  went  forth  with  torches  to  seek  them. 

Petrarch  always  had  a  sincere  fondness  for  solitude,  a 
deep  familiarity  with  its  true  genius.  Few  have  written 
on  the  subject  so  well  as  he  in  his  treatise  on  the  "  Leis- 
ure of  the  Religious,"  in  which  with  such  glow  and 
sweetness  he  depicts  the  advantages  of  the  monastic  life  ; 
and  in  his  elaborate  dissertation  "  Concerning  the  Solitary 
Life."  The  latter  work  was  sketched  in  his  early  man- 
hood, but  not  completed  till  twenty  years  afterward.  The 
argument  of  it  is  that  the  true  end  of  life  for  every  man 
is  perfection  ;  and  that  the  distractions,  insincerities,  cor- 
ruptions of  crowded  society  are  fatal  to  progress  in  this ; 
while  the  calmness,  freedom,  and  devout  meditation  of 
solitude  are  highly  favorable  to  it.  Whenever  he  touches 


226       SKETCHES  OF  LONELY  CHARACTERS. 

on  this  theme  the  pen  of  Petrarch  seems  impregnated 
with  the  softest  fire.  Born  for  solitude,  enamored  of 
leisure,  liberty,  reverie,  and  ideal  virtue,  he  fled  the  noise 
and  pestilential  vice  of  cities  with  horror,  and  sought  the 
silence  and  purity  of  the  fields  and  the  woods  with  •» 
depth  of  pleasure  which  his  pages  clearly  reflect 

Still  have  I  sought  a  life  of  solitude  — 
This  know  the  rivers,  and  each  wood,  and  plain  — 
That  I  might  'scape  the  blind  and  sordid  train 
Who  from  the  path  have  flown  of  peace  and  good. 

After  secretly  fleeing  back  to  Vaucluse,  he  writes  to  a 
friend  :  "  I  had  resolved  to  return  here  no  more  :  in  jus- 
tification of  my  inconstancy  I  have  nothing  to  allege  but 
the  necessity  I  feel  for  solitude."  At  another  time  he 
writes  :  "  The  love  of  solitude  and  repose  is  natural  to 
me.  Too  much  known,  too  much  sought  in  my  own 
country,  praised  and  flattered  even  to  nausea,  I  seek  a 
corner  where  I  may  live  unknown  and  without  glory.  My 
desert  of  Vaucluse  presents  itself  with  all  its  charm.  Its 
hills,  its  fountains,  and  its  woods,  so  favorable  to  my 
studies,  possess  my  soul  with  a  sweet  emotion  I  cannot 
describe.  I  am  no  longer  astonished  that  Camillus,  that 
great  man  whom  Rome  exiled,  sighed  after  his  country. 
Solitude  is  my  country." 

The  pictures  in  the  imagination  of  Petrarch  —  as  after- 
ward was  the  case  with  Rousseau  —  were  so  vivid  and  so 
delightful  that  his  own  undisturbed  reveries  gave  him  the 
most  satisfactory  employment.  His  ideal  enjoyments  by 
himself,  with  none  to  contradict,  nothing  to  jar  or  vex, 
were  a  more  than  sufficient  substitute  for  the  usual  inter- 
course of  men.  It  was  a  necessity  with  him  to  express 
what  he  thought  and  felt,  to  mirror  himself  in  sympathy 
either  actual  or  imaginary.  To  restrain  his  emotions  in 
disguises  or  in  bonds,  to  accept  commands  from  others, 
was  ever  intolerably  irksome  to  him.  These  are  the  very 
qualities  to  make  vulgar  society  distasteful,  solitude  deli- 
cious. "  Nothing  is  so  fatiguing,"  he  says,  "as  to  converse 
with  many,  or  with  one  whom  we  do  not  love  and  who  is 
not  familiar  with  the  same  subjects  as  ourselves."  "  On 


PETRARCH.  227 

the  mountains,  in  the  valleys  and  caves,  along  the  banks 
of  the  river,  walking  accompanied  only  by  my  own  reflec- 
tions, meeting  with  no  person  to  distract  my  mind,  I  every 
day  grow  more  calm.  I  find  Athens,  Rome,  Florence  here, 
as  my  imagination  desires.  Here  I  enjoy  all  my  friends, 
the  living,  and  the  long  dead  whom  I  know  only  by  their 
works.  Here  is  no  tyrant  to  intimidate,  no  proud  citizen 
to  insult,  no  wicked  tongue  to  calumniate.  Neither  quar- 
rels, clamors,  lawsuits,  nor  the  din  of  war  reach  us  here. 
There  are  no  great  lords  here  to  whom  court  must  be 
paid.  Avarice,  ambition,  and  envy  left  afar,  everything 
breathes  joy,  freedom,  and  simplicity."  These  sentiments 
were  sincere  expressions.  The  apparent  inconsistencies 
with  them  shown  in  his  life,  his  frequent  intimacies  with 
great  personages  and  brilliant  courts,  merely  prove  that 
there  was  also  another  side  to  his  soul ;  that  in  spite  of 
his  own  belief  that  he  was  weaned  from  the  public  and 
sick  of  celebrity,  he  really  had  all  his  life  strong  desires 
for  congenial  society,  usefulness,  honor  and  fame. 

At  the  very  time  that  he  told  the  King  of  Bohemia  that 
his  chief  desire  was  "  to  lead  a  secluded  life  at  its  foun- 
tain-head among  the  woods  and  mountains,  and  that  when 
he  could  not  go  so  far  to  find  it,  he  sought  to  enjoy  it 
in  the  midst  of  cities,"  he  was  engaged  in  composing  a 
"  Treatise  on  Illustrious  Men."  He  wrote  letters  to 
Homer,  Varro,  Cicero,  and  other  great  men,  as  if  they 
\vere  still  alive ;  and  said  that  he  strove  to  forget  sur- 
rounding vexations  by  living  mentally  with  the  renowned 
spirits  of  the  past.  He  went  into  society  to  enjoy  his 
friends,  to  serve  his  country  and  the  cause  of  letters,  and 
<o  win  glory.  He  went  into  solitude  not  from  dislike  or 
indifference  to  men,  but  as  an  escape  from  galling  re- 
straints, or  from  distressing  censures  and  injuries.  His 
sensitiveness  to  public  opinion,  even  to  the  most  trifling 
criticism  of  the  most  insignificant  persons,  was  excessive 
in  the  extreme.  His  unrivalled  celebrity  brought  his  char- 
acter, his  writings,  his  actions,  into  all  men's  mouths. 
The  wretchedness  thus  caused  him  was  unendurable,  and 
he  fled  from  it  to  the  bosom  of  nature.  He  had  written 
"  Four  Books  of  Invectives  against  Physicians,"  exposing 


228  SKETCHES   OF   LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

the  impositions  and  absurdities  of  the  profession  in  his 
time.  This  bold  and  serviceable  work  brought  a  swarm 
of  attacks  on  him.  He  said,  "  I  shall  bury  myself  in  a 
solitude  so  profound  that  care  and  envy  will  not  be  able 
»to  find  me  out.  What  folly !  can  I  expect  to  find  any 
place  where  envy  cannot  penetrate  ? "  After  being 
crowned  Laureate  in  Rome  —  the  first  repetition  of  that 
august  ceremony  for  thirteen  hundred  years  —  he  says, 
"  It  only  seemed  to  raise  envy  and  deprive  me  of  the 
repose  I  enjoyed.  From  that  time  tongues  and  pens 
were  sharpened  against  me."  He  cared  too  much  for  the 
opinion  oi  men,  not  too  little.  He  yearned  to  love  and 
admire,  to  be  loved  and  admired.  "  I  esteem  myself 
happy,"  he  once  writes,  "  in  having  quitted  Venice  for 
Padua.  There  I  should  have  been  suspected ;  here  I 
am  caressed." 

Led  by  too  much  of  his  personal  experience  of  the 
world  to  think  mankind  at  large  set  against  virtue  and 
wisdom,  and  against  the  votaries  of  virtue  and  wisdom, 
his  character,  as  Ugo  Foscolo  has  said,  sometimes  wears 
a  tint  of  misanthropy  by  no  means  natural  to  him.  Really 
he  had  "  more  of  fear  than  hatred,  more  of  pity  than  con- 
tempt for  men."  He  was  one  of  those  unfortunate  men 
whose  self-complacency  is  so  unstable,  whose  sympathy 
so  keen,  that  they  are  afraid  of  those  they  love.  His 
kind  acts  were  innumerable.  He  owned  the  only  known 
copy  of  Cicero's  treatise  "  De  Gloria,"  and  lending  it  to 
his  decayed  schoolmaster,  to  be  put  in  pawn  for  the  tem- 
porary relief  of  the  poor  old  man,  it  was  irreparably  lost 
to  the  world.  "  As  a  man,"  he  said,  "  I  cannot  but  be 
touched  with  the  miseries  of  humanity  ;  as  an  Italian,  I 
believe  no  one  more  keenly  feels  the  calamities  of  my 
country."  He  was  not,  in  any  reprehensible  sense,  an 
egotist,  far  less  a  misanthrope,  in  his  love  of  isolation. 
He  lacked  —  and  this  was  his  central  weakness  —  what 
made  the  strong  Goethe  so  sound,  the  mature  Wordsworth 
so  content,  namely,  a  direct  life  in  the  objects  of  nature, 
freedom  from  brooding  on  morbid  sensations  :  and  a  di- 
rect life  in  the  general  truths  of  humanity,  freedom  from 
a  wearisome  attention  to  personal  details.  He  himself 


PETRARCH.  229 

Confesses  to  the  mistake  of  taking  "  life  in  details  rather 
than  in  the  gross." 

He  read  and  wrote  with  hardly  the  slightest  intermis- 
sion. He  reflected  and  brooded  till  he  lost  his  health 
of  body  and  mind,  and  life  became  "  sicklied  o'er  with 
the  pale  cast  of  thought."  A  dreadful  ennui  devoured  him. 
He  imagined  that  "  a  weariness  and  disgust  of  everything 
naturally  inhered  in  his  soul."  He  said,  "  I  conceived 
that  to  cure  all  my  miseries  I  must  study  them  night  and 
day,  renouncing  all  other  desires  ;  that  the  only  way  of 
forgetting  life  was  to  reflect  perpetually  on  death.  In 
kindred  strain  he  sings, 

Ceaseless  I  think,  and  in  each  wasting  thought 

So  strong  a  pity  for  myself  appears 
That  often  it  has  brought 

My  harassed  heart  to  new  yet  natural  tears. 

Again  he  says,  "  I  am  weary  of  life.  Whatever  patn 
I  take  I  find  it  strewn  with  flints  and  thorns.  Would 
that  the  time  were  come  when  I  might  depart  in  search 
of  a  world  far  different  from  this  wherein  I  feel  so  un- 
happy." And  once  more,  at  a  later  date,  he  writes,  "  I 
start  up  in  wildness,  I  speak  to  myself;  I  dissolve  in 
tears  ;  I  have  visions  which  inflict  on  me  the  torments 
of  hell."  This  was  near  the  end.  His  last  composition 
was  a  letter  to  his  friend  Boccaccio,  which  closed  with  the 
words,  "  Adieu,  my  friends !  Adieu,  my  studies  !  "  He 
was  found  dead  in  his  library  with  his  arm  resting  on  a 
book.  Distinguished  honors  were  paid  to  his  remains 
and  his  memory.  At  this  day  in  popular  fame  he  stands 
at  the  head  of  all  the  poets  of  love,  his  name  wedded  to 
that  of  the  Laura  he  has  immortalized.  Scholars  make 
grateful  acknowledgment  of  the  signal  services  he  ren- 
dered to  the  cause  of  learning.  Psychologists  recognize 
him  as  one  of  the  few  whose  characters  have  contributed 
a  distinctive  historic  influence  to  following  times. 

The  richness  of  his  mind,  the  burning  passions  of  his 
heart,  lent  to  the  coldness  and  fickleness  of  average  men 
a  stronger  repulsion,  and  invested  him  with  a  double  iso- 
lation in  giving  him  superior  company  of  his  own.  "  Be- 


230  SKETCHES    OF    LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

holding,  on  the  shores  washed  by  the  Tyrrhene  Sea,  that 
stately  laurel  which  always  warms  my  imagination,  through 
impatience  I  fell  breathless  into  the  intervening  stream.  I 
was  alone  and  in  the  woods,  yet  I  blushed  at  my  own  heed- 
lessness;  for,  to  the  reflecting  mind,  no  outward  witness  is 
necessary  to  excite  the  emotion  of  shame."  These  strik- 
ing words  touch  the  secret  of  the  haunting  unhappiness  of 
Petrarch,  namely,  his  intense  sympathy,  that  presence  of 
his  fellow-beings  in  imagination  from  which  he  could  not 
free  himself,  of  which  even  his  apparent  misanthropy  it- 
self was  but  one  of  the  disturbed  symptoms.  Such  an 
experience  as  that  just  quoted  was  relatively  unknown  in 
classical  antiquity.  Egypt,  Judaea,  Greece,  Rome,  had  no 
such  characters  as  Zimmermann,  Senancour,  Chatterton, 
Chopin,  Heine,  David  Gray.  The  self-gnawing  wretched- 
ness of  such  men  is  the  product  of  a  later  civilization,  of 
our  Christian  epoch.  What  is  the  cause  of  this  melan- 
choly moaning  and  fading  of  men  of  genius,  so  familiar 
to  us  now  ?  What  makes  the  unhappiness  of  Christian 
genius  in  comparison  with  the  .clear  content  and  joyful- 
ness  of  the  best  type  of  ancient  Pagan  life  ? 

It  is  a  consequence  of  the  enormous  enhancement  of 
sympathy.  In  antiquity,  the  family  was  the  unit  of  life  ; 
outside  of  it,  the  individual  had  comparatively  few  re- 
sponsive tendrils  of  feeling.  Christianity,  with  the  progress 
of  civilization,  and  the  universal  intercommunication  of 
the  nations  of  the  earth,  has  generated  a  powerful  feeling 
of  the  relation  between  the  individual  and  the  total  race. 
Jesus  identified  himself  with  all  the  afflicted  members  of 
humanity  :  "Inasmuch  as  ye  have  done  it  unto  one  of  the 
least  of  these,  ye  have  done  it  unto  me,"  —  a  sentence 
which  has  been  unspeakably  influential  on  the  historic 
sentiment  of  the  last  eighteen  hundred  years.  Shake- 
speare makes  Antony  say  of  the  murder  of  Caesar  :  — 

O,  what  a  fall  was  there,  my  countrymen  ! 
Then  you,  and  I,  and  all  of  us  fell  down. 

This  feeling  of  entire  humanity  in  each  person  devel- 
oped an  unprecedented,  mysterious,  objective  sympathy 
which  has  since  often  oppressed  sensitive  minds  as  "  the 


PETRARCH.  231 

burden  and  the  weight  of  all  this  unintelligible  world." 
We  read,  it  is  true,  in  the  Sanscrit  Mahabharata  and 
Ramayana,  in  the  Persian  poets,  and  in  the  Arabian 
Nights'  Entertainments,  expressions  of  feeling  as  deep, 
fine,  and  vast  as  anything  in  modern  Christian  literature  ; 
but  it  is  something  very  different  which  they  express.  It 
is  either  personal  affection,  as  when  a  lover  is  represented 
fainting  away  at  a  frown,  falling  dead  under  an  unkind 
word  ;  or  it  is  a  response  to  ideas  of  a  transcendental 
faith,  an  ecstatic  idealism,  a  pantheistic  theosophy.  The 
pining  and  swooning  emotions  of  the  finest  Orientals  are 
subjective,  resulting  either  from  love  of  a  particular  per- 
son, or  from  mystic  devotion.  But  the  emotions  we  are 
dealing  with  are  objective,  although  neither  personal  noi 
metaphysical  in  their  object.  They  are  really  unrecog- 
nized reactions  on  the  vague  general  idea  of  humanity. 

Now,  by  means  of  literature,  newspapers,  telegraphs, 
interlacing  ties  of  business,  travel,  kindred,  friendship, 
innumerable  mutual  interests,  a  man  of  sensitive  genius 
lives  constantly  as  it  were  in  the  ideal  presence  of  all 
mankind.  Public  opinion  is  a  reality  as  solid  to  him  as 
the  globe,  its  phenomena  as  influential  as  sunshine  and 
darkness.  Where  life  used  to  be  direct,  it  is  now  reflec- 
tive. Consciousness,  once  made  up  of  single  lines,  now 
consists  of  a  mazy  web.  The  immense  complication  of 
actions  and  reactions,  distinctive  of  modern  experience, 
produces  a  mass  and  multiplicity  of  feelings  not  yet  "har- 
monized, to  be  harmonized  with  difficulty  and  slowness, 
but  infallibly  productive  of  painful  desires  and  sorrows 
until  harmonized. 

Furthermore,  the  healthy  objectivity  of  Greek  life  be- 
tokened the  well-balanced  adjustment  of  man's  desires 
with  his  earthly  state.  Ecclesiastical  Christianity  threw 
discredit  and  darkness  on  the  earthly  lot  by  its  over- 
whelming portrayal  of  the  worthlessness  of  the  evanescent 
present  in  comparison  with  the  everlasting  glories  of 
heaven.  The  doctrine  of  immortality  engendered  a  sen- 
timent of  correspondent  proportions,  which,  unable  to 
renounce  this  world  and  patiently  wait  for  the  other,  at- 
tempted to  dilate  the  prizes  of  time  to  the  capacity  of  its 


232  SKETCHES   OF   LONELY    CHARACTERS. 

demands.  A  vast,  hungry  sense  of  incongruity  resulted, 
prolific  in  disease  and  unfathomable  misery ;  a  sick  and 
sore  introspectiveness,  a  devouring  greed  for  love  and 
admiration,  a  frantic  effort,  in  the  phrase  of  Bacon,  "  to 
cure  mortality  with  fame."  The  increase  of  sympathy 
consequent  on  the  ideas  of  the  unity  of  the  human  race 
and  the  community  of  human  life  has  made  the  experience 
of  the  modern  masses  of  men  happier  than  that  of  the 
ancient  masses  ;  but  its  unharmonized  excess  has  created 
the  unhappiness  of  that  class  of  exceptional  men  of  genius 
of  whom  the  unhappy  Petrarch  stands  as  the  first  popular 
literary  representative.  In  his  eloquent  "  Trionfi  "  he 
nobly  depicts  the  great  periods  in  the  experience  of  the 
soul.  First,  Love  triumphs  over  Man  ;  secondly,  Chas- 
tity triumphs  over  Love  ;  thirdly,  Death  triumphs  over 
both  ;  fourthly,  Fame  triumphs  over  Death ;  fifthly,  Time 
triumphs  over  Fame  ;  and  finally,  Eternity  triumphs  over 
Time.  The  man  of  large  and  fine  genius,  before  he  can 
cease  to  be  unhappy,  must,  in  his  own  soul,  go  through 
all  these  triumphs  into  the  last  one,  by  self-denial  and  the 
firm  subordination  of  his  impulsive  sensibilities  to  the 
unchangeable  conditions  of  destiny. 

In  personal  intercourse  Petrarch  was  one  of  the  most 
fascinating  of  beings.  His  friends  idolized  him,  "  wel- 
comed him  with  tears  of  joy  as  though  he  had  been  an 
angel.  One  high  duty  of  writers  of  genius  he  fulfilled 
with*  signal  effect,  —  that  of  softening  and  refining  the 
feelings  of  the  vulgar.  The  other  duty  of  great  men,  to 
be  healthy  and  happy,  that  they  may  inoculate  the  needy 
world  with  sanity  and  joy,  he  is,  perhaps,  more  to  be 
pitied  than  blamed  for  failing  to  fulfil. 

They  say  his  strains  tend  to  effeminate  his  countrymen. 
Well,  there  are  plenty  of  influences  in  the  other  direction, 
military,  political,  mercantile,  mechanical.  Not  without 
good  effect  does  his  soft  and  softening  strain  mingle  in 
ths  harsh  roar  of  toil,  trade,  ambition,  and  battle.  In 
consideration  of  his  great  love  his  offences  must  be  for 
given.  They  are  forgiven  and  forgotten  in  the  affections 
of  multitudes  of  readers,  who,  gratefully  cherishing  his 
worth  and  service,  blend  his  name  alike  with  the  thought 
of  loneliness  and  the  memory  of  Laura. 


TASSO.  233 

They  keep  his  dust  in  Arqua,  where  he  died  : 

The  mountain-village  where  his  latter  days 

Went  down  the  vale  of  years  ;  and  't  is  their  pride  — 

An  honest  pride,  and  let  it  be  their  praise  — 

To  offer  to  the  passing  stranger's  gaze 

His  mansion  and  his  sepulchre  ;  both  plain 

And  venerably  simple,  such  as  raise 

A  feeling  more  accordant  with  his  strain, 

Than  if  a  pyramid  formed  his  monumental  fane. 

And  the  soft  quiet  hamlet  where  he  dwelt 
Is  one  of  that  complexion  which  seems  made 
For  those  who  their  mortality  have  felt, 
And  sought  a  refuge  from  their  hopes  decayed 
In  the  deep  umbrage  of  a  green  hill's  shade, 
Which  shows  a  distant  prospect  far  away 
Of  busy  cities,  now  in  vain  displayed, 
For  they  can  lure  no  further ;  and  the  ray 
Of  a  bright  sun  can  make  sufficient  holiday, 

Developing  the  mountains,  leaves,  and  flowers, 

And  shining  in  the  brawling  brook,  whereby, 

Clear  as  its  current,  glide  the  sauntering  hours 

With  a  calm  languor,  which,  though  to  the  eye 

Idlesse  it  seem,  hath  its  morality. 

If  from  society  we  learn  to  live, 

'T  is  solitude  should  teach  us  how  to  die. 


TASSO. 

THE  noble  Torquato  Tasso,  fearing  that  his  fathei 
would  be  displeased  if  he  stole  time  from  his  legal  stud- 
ies, hurried  into  seclusion,  and,  secretly  devoting  all  his 
leisure  hours  to  the  muse,  produced  his  brilliant  poem  of 
Rinaldo  before  he  was  eighteen  years  old.  His  fervid 
fancy,  fondness  for  study,  exquisite  sensibility,  and  in- 
tense desire  of  popular  love  and  fame,  while  they  made 
him  keenly  crave  society  and  friendship,  compelled  him 
to  know  much  solitude.  His  enemies,  envious  critics, 
dictatorial  patrons,  and  literary  censors,  persecuted  him 
with  endless  vexations  of  the  most  exasperating  sort, 
bitterly  attacking  his  style,  insisting  on  the  omission  of 
what  he  felt  to  be  the  best  passages  of  his  poems,  and 
circulating  grossly  altered  and  mutilated  editions  of  them 
in  spite  of  ali  his  protestations.  Escaping  from  the  annoy- 


Z34       SKETCHES  OB  LONELY  CHARACTERS. 

ances  and  unappreciation  he  suffered  at  Ferrara,  he  wan- 
dered for  several  years  from  city  to  city,  "  the  finest  genius 
of  his  time,  a  prey  to  sorrow  and  disease,  his  splendid 
fancy  darkened  by  distress,  his  noble  heart  devoured  at 
once  by  the  agony  of  hopeless  love  and  the  ambition  of 
literary  glory."  When  he  returned  to  the  court  of  Al- 
phonso,  expecting  affectionate  welcome  and  honor,  he 
was  met  with  rude  neglect.  Insulted  and  derided,  he 
gave  vent  to  his  indignation  in  such  terms  as  caused  the 
Duke  to  have  him  put  under  guard  in  an  asylum  for  pau- 
pers and  madmen.  The  misery  of  such  a  spirit,  so  tender 
and  so  proud,  so  surpassingly  alive  to  the  breath  of  human 
opinion,  when  subjected  to  the  foul  injustice  and  severity 
with  which  the  haughty  heartlessness  of  his  master  here 
pursued  him,  can  hardly  be  conceived  by  ordinary  minds. 
His  own  descriptions  of  it  are  indescribably  touching. 

There  is  no  solitude  on  earth  so  deep 

As  that  where  man  decrees  that  man  shall  weep. 

He  writes  to  his  dear  friend  Gonzaga,  "  The  fear  of  being 
perpetually  imprisoned  here  increases  my  melancholy, 
and  the  squalor  of  my  beard,  my  hair,  and  habi't,  exceed- 
ingly annoys  me.  But,  above  all,  I  am  afflicted  by  soli- 
tude, which  even  in  my  best  state  was  often  so  tormenting 
that  I  have  gone  in  search  of  company  at  the  most  un- 
seasonable hours."  Incarcerated  for  seven  long  and  cruel 
years,  his  loneliness  was  so  great  that  his  disturbed  mind 
created  for  itself  the  belief  that  a  familiar  Spirit  was  in 
the  constant  habit  of  coming  to  hold  high  and  kind  com- 
munion with  him. 

All  the  historians  of  Ta'sso  agree  in  eulogizing  "his 
candor,  his  fidelity  to  his  word,  his  courtesy,  his  frank- 
ness, his  freedom  from  the  least  tincture  of  revenge  or 
of  malignity,  his  attachment  to  his  friends,  his  gratitude 
to  his  benefactors,  his  patience  in  misfortune,  his  mildness 
and  sobriety,  his  purity  of  life  and  manners,  his  sincere 
piety.  None  of  his  foes  seem  to  have  been  able  to  charge 
him  justly  with  a  single  moral  stain."  He  was  extremely 
sensitive  to  slights,  exacting  of  the  respect  due  to  him. 
This  was  his  single  ungracious  quality.  Few  things  are 


BRUNO.  235 

more  cruel  than  that  so  highly  loving  and  gifted  a  soul 
should  have  had  such  numerous  and  rancorous  enemies 
that  his  life  was  embittered  and  burdened  by  them  until 
he  was  quite  weaned  from  it.  When  a  guest  of  Rome, 
lodged  in  the  Vatican,  waiting  to  be  crowned  with  laurel, 
— the  first  poet  so  honored  since  Petrarch, — he  sighed  to 
flee  away  and  be  at  rest.  Growing  very  ill,  he  obtained 
permission  to  retire  to  the  Monastery  of  Saint  Onofrio. 
When  the  physician  informed  him  that  his  last  hour  was 
near,  he  embraced  him,  expressed  his  gratitude  for  so 
sweet  an  announcement,  and  then,  lifting  his  eyes,  thanked 
God  that  after  so  tempestuous  a  life  he  was  now  brought 
to  a  calm  haven.  The  Pope  having  granted  the  dying 
poet  a  plenary  indulgence,  he  said,  "  This  is  the  chariot 
on  which  I  hope  to  go  crowned,  not  with  laurel  as  a 
poet  into  the  capitol,  but '  with  glory  as  a  saint  into 
heaven." 

BRUNO. 

GIORDANO  BRUNO,  an  exceedingly  brave,  sensitive,  lov- 
ing soul,  for  these  very  qualities,  which  in  more  favor- 
able conditions  of  society  would  have  blessed  him  with 
dear  comrades  and  popular  admiration,  was  made  an 
outcast  and  an  exile.  Intensely  desirous  of  wisdom  and 
nobleness,  unflinchingly  loyal  to  reality,  detesting  false- 
hood and  indifference,  a  burning  worshipper  of  truth  and 
freedom,  in  an  age  of  despotism  and  conformity  he  was 
naturally  considered  dangerous,  and  was  put  under  ban. 
Lonely  in  his  loftiness  of  unterrified  thought,  hunted  from 
nation  to  nation,  with  brief  respites,  unfriended,  save  by 
a  few  generous  exceptions  like  Fulke  Greville  and  Sir 
Philip  Sidney,  the  integrity  of  his  own  soul  was  his  un- 
quenchable comfort,  and  the  presence  of  the  Infinite  Spirit 
of  Eternal  Verity  was  his  inseparable  companionship. 

The  tonic  of  his  veracious  health  and  cheer  is  breathed 
in  the  words  he  speaks  :  "  To  have  sought,  found,  and 
laid  open  a  form  of  Truth,  —  be  that  my  commendation, 
even  though  none  understand.  If,  with  Nature,  and  un- 
der God,  I  be  wise,  that  surely  is  more  than  enough.'1 


236  SKETCHES   OF   LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

Imprisoned,  mercilessly  tortured,  kept  for  over  two  years 
from  the  sight  of  all  human  faces  save  hostile  and  mock- 
ing ones,  with  divine  resolution  refusing  to  deny  a  thought 
or  recant  a  word,  he  was  at  last  burned  at  the  stake.  In 
some  lines  of  his  own,  written  with  prophetic  anticipation 
of  this  very  end,  he  says,  "  Open,  open  the  way  !  Ye 
dense  multitude,  spare  this  sightless,  speechless  face  all 
harsh  obstructions,  while  the  toil-worn,  sunken  form  goes 
knocking  at  the  gates  of  less  painful  but  deeper  death  • /J 
Genius  often  brings  with  it  into  the  world  a  feeling  of 
melancholy  strangeness,  if  not  of  estrangement,  —  a  mys- 
terious homesickness  of  soul.  It  feels  itself  a  foreigner 
on  the  earth.  The  features  of  Bruno  —  in  the  portrait 
transmitted  to  our  times  —  are  affectingly  expressive  of 
this.  He  looks  like  one  whose  affections  had  been  re- 
pulsed by  an  unworthy  world,  and  whose  soul  had  found 
strength  by  divinely  rallying  itself  upon  God.  As  we 
gaze  on  his  strong,  sad,  lonely  lineaments  we  are  re- 
minded of  what  he  himself  says  in  one  of  his  sonnets  :  — 
"  You  may  read  the  story  of  my  life  written  in  my  face." 


vico. 

Vico,  the  great  founder  of  the  science  of  history,  was 
one  of  the  loneliest  minds  of  his  century.  A  more  pro- 
found or  original  thinker  has  rarely  appeared.  While  yet 
young  he  became  tutor  to  the  nephews  of  the  Bishop  of 
Ischia,  where  he  spent  nine  years  in  the  lonely  solitude 
of  Vatolla,  dividing  his  thoughts  between  poetry,  philos- 
ophy, and  jurisprudence.  His  chosen  comrades,  besides 
the  great  Roman  jurisconsults,  were  Plato  and  Dante, 
with  the  last  of  whom  his  ardent  and  melancholy  genius 
closely  allied  him.  But  even  such  mental  companionship 
was  more  frequently  deserted  for  the  pursuit  of  his  own 
absorbing  reflections. 

He  saw  that  the  history  of  mankind  was  no  medley  or 
phantasmagoria,  at  the  mercy  of  individual  leaders,  but  a 
grand  march  of  humanity,  a  total  evolution  of  humanity, 
governed  by  great  laws  and  reducible  to  a  science.  He 


vico.  237 

trod  the  lonely  path  of  this  discovery  with  unweaneJ 
patience,  every  day  rising  higher  in  unknown  regions, 
meeting  no  rival  or  companion,  leaving  his  fellow-beings 
below  him  as  fast  as  he  mounted,  until  at  last,  seating 
himself  on  the  summit,  and  looking  around,  he  saw,  spread 
out  far  beneath  his  feet,  all  mankind  and  their  history  in 
one  view.  "  Unhappily,"  said  Michelet,  "  he  found  him- 
self quite  alone.  No  one  could  understand  him.  He 
was  equally  isolated  by  the  originality  of  his  ideas  and 
by  the  strangeness  of  his  speech.  The  opposite  of  that 
which  happened  to  the  Seven  Sleepers  befell  him.  He 
had  forgotten  the  language  of  the  past  and  could  speak 
only  that  of  the  future, — a  language  then  too  early  and 
now  too  late,  —  so  that  for  this  grand  and  unfortunate 
genius  the  time  has  never  come." 

He  gave  surprising  examples  of  the  vigor  of  his  com- 
prehensive and  penetrating  intellect  by  originating  the 
doctrine  of  myths,  which,  in  its  application  to  history, 
has  since  proved  so  fruitful  in  valuable  results ;  also  in 
first  propounding,  with  as  much  precision  and  thorough- 
ness as  it  has  since  received,  the  profound  truth  that  the 
record  of  much  of  the  pre-historic  experience  of  mankind 
is  locked  up  in  the  etymological  structure  of  language. 
It  is  only  just  now,  in  our  own  generation,  that,  in  the 
hands  of  the  gifted  masters  of  the  science  of  comparative 
philology,  this  deep  discovery  is  amazing  the  world  with 
its  brilliant  revelations,  forcing  from  the  dark  matrix  of 
each  primitive  word  some  crystallized  secret  of  the  for- 
gotten life  of  the  human  race. 

Vico  has  written  his  own  life ;  and  it  is  piteous  to  read 
the  account  of  the  painful  isolation  in  which  he  was  left 
by  the  careless  and  the  envious.  His  rivals,  chagrined 
by  his  vast  superiority,  treated  him  with  cruel  injustice. 
Some  called  him  insane,  others  an  obscure  and  paradox- 
ical genius.  He  was  traduced,  satirized,  pursued  with 
ironical  eulogies.  He  says,  "Vico  blessed  these  adversi- 
ties which  ever  drew  him  back  to  his  studies.  Retired  in 
his  solitude,  as  in  an  impregnable  fortress,  he  thought,  he 
wrote,  he  took  a  noble  vengeance  on  his  detractors.  There 
he  found  the  new  science.  From  that  moment  he  believed 


238  SKETCHES    OF    LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

he  had  nothing  to  envy  Socrates,  in  regard  to  whom  the 
good    Phedrus   expresses   the   magnanimous  sentiment 
'  Insure  me  his  fame,  and  I  will  not  shrink  from  his  death. 
The  envy  which  followed  me  living  shall  absolve  me  when 
dead.' " 

At  another  time  he  says  :  "  Since  completing  my  great 
work  I  feel  that  I  have  become  a  new  man.  I  am  no 
longer  inclined  to  declaim  against  the  bad  taste  of  the 
age,  which,  in  refusing  me  the  place  I  demanded,  has 
given  me  occasion  to  compose  the  new  science.  Shall  I 
say  it  ?  I  may  deceive  myself,  but  I  do  not  wish  to  de- 
ceive myself.  The  composition  of  this  work  has  animated 
me  with  a  heroic  spirit  which  lifts  me  above  the  fear  of 
death  and  all  the  calumnies  of  my  rivals.  When  I  think 
of  the  judgment  of  God  which  rewards  genius  with  the 
esteem  of  the  wise,  I  feel  myself  seated  on  an  adaman- 
tine cliff."  Frequently  in  his  poems  he  opens  his  inmost 
heart,  and  consoles  himself  for  lack  of  honor  and  love 
with  the  thought  of  his  great  discoveries,  "  penetrating  in 
the  abyss  of  wisdom  to  the  eternal  laws  by  which  human- 
ity is  governed,"  "all  nations  together  forming  one  city, 
founded  and  ruled  by  God  himself" ;  and  also  with  the 
thought  of  posthumous  fame.  How  beautiful  are  these 
words,  breathed  in  his  pining  solitude  :  "  My  dear  country 
has  refused  me  everything.  But  I  respect  and  revere  her. 
A  severe  mother,  who  never  caresses  her  son  or  presses 
him  to  her  bosom,  is  none  the  less  honored.  In  the 
thought  of  the  unrecognized  benefits  I  have  conferred  on 
her,  I  already  find  noble  consolation." 

At  last  "  the  unfortunate  Vico,"  to  use  his  own  words. 
"  broken  down  by  age,  wrongs,  fatigues,  and  physical  suf- 
ferings," welcomed  the  grave  as  a  sweet  shelter  from  all 
storms.  His  fame  is  still  growing  brighter,  as  reflected  in 
lofty  minds,  congenial  with  his  own,  from  generation  to 
generation.  No  gentle  spirit  who  has  learned  to  appre- 
ciate his  quick  and  tender  genius,  the  unkindness  and 
desertion  he  suffered  in  his  time,  can  read  the  following 
apostrophe  from  one  of  his  earlier  poems  without  a  quick- 
ening heart-beat,  without  longing  to  call  him  back  to  re- 
ceive now,  so  late,  the  meed  he  merited  then.  "  Pure  and 


DESCARTES.  239 

uanquil  life,  calm  and  innocent  pleasures,  glory  and  treas- 
ure won  by  merit,  celestial  peace  of  mind,  and  that  which, 
is  dearest  to  my  heart,  the  love  of  which  love  is  the  price, 
delicious  reciprocity  of  sincere  faith,  sweet  images  of  hap- 
piness,  although  but   to  aggravate  my  pain,  still,  come 


again ! " 


DESCARTES. 


THE  great  Descartes,  the  pollen  of  whose  thoughts, 
borne  on  all  the  breezes  of  inquiry,  fertilized  the  philos- 
ophy of  Europe  for  two  centuries,  is  a  fine  example  of 
one  who,  in  spite  of  brilliant  accomplishments,  extended 
reputation,  strong  affections,  and  courteous  manners,  was 
made  essentially  a  solitary  man  by  his  intense  devotion 
to  the  discovery  of  truth.  He  repudiated  traditional  au- 
thority and  prejudice,  and  with  a  sublime  force  and  hero- 
ism of  soul  threw  himself  back  on  common  sense  and  a 
sceptical  openness  and  freedom  of  search  for  the  reality 
of  things.  There  are  four  ways  in  which  most  persons 
arrive  at  their  various  degrees  of  wisdom  :  self-evident 
notions,  the  experience  of  the  senses,  the  conversation 
of  other  men,  the  reading  of  books.  There  have  been, 
Descartes  says,  in  all  ages,  great  minds  who  have  tried 
to  find  a  fifth  road  to  wisdom,  incomparably  higher  and 
surer  than  the  other  four,  namely,  the  search  of  first 
causes  and  true  principles  from  which  may  be  deduced 
the  reasons  of  all  that  can  be  known. 

On  this  fifth  road  few  mightier  travellers  than  he  have 
ever  trod.  Those  who  have  passed  him  since  were  in- 
debted to  his  guidance.  He  dared  to  strip  off  all  past 
beliefs  that  he  might  not  be  encumbered  or  misled. 
"  But,"  he  says,  "  like  one  walking  alone  and  in  the  dark, 
I  resolved  to  proceed  so  slowly  and  with  such  circum- 
spection that  if  I  did  not  advance  far,  I  would  at  least 
guard  against  falling."  Regarding  "  the  supreme  good  as 
nothing  more  than  the  knowledge  of  truth  through  its  first 
causes,"  he  allowed  nothing  to  interfere  with  his  pursuit 
of  it. 

But  his  kind  temper,  good  taste  and  prudence  did  not 


240  SKETCHES    OF    LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

disarm  the  fears  and  foes  awakened  by  the  boldness  of 
his  speculations.  Stratagems  and  dangers  surrounded 
him.  Cousin  says,  "  After  having  run  round  the  world 
much,  studying  men  on  a  thousand  occasions,  on  the 
battle-field,  and  at  court,  he  concluded  that  he  must  live 
a  recluse.  He  became  a  hermit  in  Holland."  Eight 
years  later  he  writes,  "  Here,  in  the  midst  of  a  great 
crowd  actively  engaged  in  business  and  more  careful  of 
their  own  affairs  than  curious  about  those  of  others,  I 
have  been  enabled  to  live  without  being  deprived  of  any 
of  the  conveniences  to  be  had  in  the  most  populous  cities, 
and  yet  as  solitary  and  as  retired  as  in  the  midst  of  the 
most  remote  deserts."  At  another  time  he  says,  "  I  shall 
always  hold  myself  more  obliged  to  those  through  whose 
favor  I  am  permitted  to  enjoy  my  retirement  without  in- 
terruption than  to  any  one  who  might  offer  me  the  highest 
earthly  preferments."  There  is  no  reason  to  doubt  the 
sincerity  of  this  declaration  ;  yet  there  is  another  side  to 
the  truth.  For  when  Queen  Christina  paid  him  honoring 
attentions,  and  invited  him  to  her  court  at  Stockholm,  he 
went  thither  and  occupied  an  academic  post.  His  first 
passion  was  the  pursuit  of  truth  ;  his  second,  a  love  of 
the  esteem  of  his  fellow  men.  His  own  frank  words  give 
a  pleasing  proof  of  this.  "  My  disposition  making  me 
unwilling  to  be  esteemed  different  from  what  I  really 
am,  I  thought  it  necessary  by  all  means  to  render  my- 
self worthy  of  the  reputation  accorded  to  me.  This  desire 
constrained  me  to  remove  from  all  those  places  where  in- 
terruption from  any  of  my  acquaintances  was  possible, 
and  to  give  myself  up  to  studies."  There  was  no  misan- 
thropic ingredient  in  his  isolation.  Yet,  once  or  twice,  a 
little  soreness,  a  little  petulance  at  the  neglect  of  the 
public,  at  the  lack  of  the  co-operation  he  needed,  escapes 
him.  "  Seeing  that  the  experiments  requisite  for  the  veri- 
fication of  my  reasonings  would  demand  an  expenditure 
to  which  the  resources  of  a  private  individual  are  inade- 
quate, and  as  I  have  no  ground  to  expect  public  aid,  I 
believe  I  ought  for  the  future  to  content  myself  with 
studying  for  my  own  instruction,  and  posterity  will  ex- 
cuse me  if  I  fail  to  labor  for  them."  But  if,  contrary  to 


DESCARTES.  841 

his  own  opinion,  the  ambition  of  Descartes  in  relation  to 
society  and  mankind  was  superior  to  his  fruition,  so  that 
some  dissatisfaction  resulted,  it  did  not  sour  or  exasperate 
him.  On  the  whole,  he  kept  his  moral  equipoise  well  and 
sweetly.  He  has  himself  indicated  his  three  great  re- 
serves of  happiness. 

First,  his  employment  itself.  "  The  brutes,  which  have 
only  their  bodies  to  conserve,  are  continually  occupied  in 
seeking  sources  of  nourishment ;  but  men,  of  whom  the 
chief  part  is  the  mind,  ought  to  make  the  search  after  wis- 
dom their  principal  care ;  for  wisdom  is  the  true  nourish- 
ment of  the  mind."  "  Although  I  have  been  accustomed 
to  think  lowly  enough  of  myself,  and  although  when  I 
look  with  the  eye  of  a  philosopher  at  the  varied  courses 
and  pursuits  of  mankind  at  large,  I  find  scarcely  one  which 
does  not  appear  vain  and  useless,  I  nevertheless  derive  the 
highest  satisfaction  from  the  progress  I  conceive  myself  to 
have  already  made  in  the  search  after  truth,  and  cannot 
help  entertaining  such  expectations  of  the  future  as  to  be- 
lieve that  if,  among  the  occupations  of  men  as  men,  there 
is  any  one  really  excellent  and  important,  it  is  that  which 
I  have  chosen." 

Second,  intercourse  with  the  highest  minds  of  all  times 
and  countries.  "The  perusal  of  excellent  books  is,  as  it 
were,  to  enjoy  an  interview  with  the  noblest  men  of  past 
ages,  who  have  written  them,  and  even  a  studied  inter- 
view in  which  are  discovered  to  us  only  their  choicest 
thoughts." 

And  thirdly,  the  subjection  of  his  wishes  to  his  con- 
dition. "  My  maxim  was  always  to  endeavor  to  conquer 
myself  rather  than  fortune,  and  change  my  desires  rather 
than  the  order  of  the  world,  and,  in  general,  to  accustom 
myself  to  the  persuasion  that,  except  our  own  thoughts, 
there  is  nothing  absolutely  in  our  power.  Thus  we  learn 
to  regret  nothing  which  is  unchangeable,  desire  nothing 
which  is  unattainable.  I  confess  there  is  need  of  pro- 
longed discipline  and  repeated  meditation  to  accustom 
the  mind  to  view  all  objects  in  this  light ;  and  I  believe 
that  in  this  chiefly  consisted  the  secret  of  the  power  of 
such  philosophers  as  in  former  times  were  enabled  to  rise 
it  p 


242  SKETCHES   OF   LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

superior  to  the  influence  of  fortune,  and,  amid  suffering 
and  poverty,  enjoy  happiness  which  their  gods  might  have 
envied." 

HOBBES. 

THE  famous  philosopher  of  Malmesbury  is  an  example 
of  the  difficulty  a  man  of  great  intellect  and  proud  sensi- 
tiveness experiences  in  reconciling  himself  to  the  disparity 
between  his  own  estimate  of  himself  and  the  estimate  set 
on  him  by  his  unappreciative  neighbors.  He  was  one  of 
the  most  independent  and  powerful  thinkers,  one  of  the 
most  clear  and  energetic  writers,  that  have  ever  appeared 
in  England.  Macaulay  even  calls  him  "  the  most  acute 
and  vigorous  of  human  intellects."  He  lived  to  the  age 
of  ninety-two,  devoting  his  great  endowments  to  a  course 
of  earnest  thought  resulting  in  unpopular  conclusions  em- 
bodied in  unpopular  works.  He  was  misunderstood,  mis- 
represented, misvalued,  ill  treated. 

Although  haughty  and  irascible,  he  had  many  good 
qualities,  which  drew  the  interest  of  numerous  distin- 
guished contemporaries  to  him.  Three  successive  Earls 
of  Devonshire  patronized  him,  thought  highly  of  him, 
gave  him  a  home,  with  slight  duties  and  great  leisure. 
He  was  a  good  hater,  and  evidently  relished  despising 
the  ignorant  herd  and  dealing  bitter  blows  against  his 
enemies.  He  comforted  himself  for  his  unpopularity  by 
cherishing  friendly  relations  and  correspondence  with  the 
chief  great  men  of  his  time,  such  as  Bacon,  Harvey, 
Descartes,  Ben  Jonson,  Aubrey,  Clarendon  ;  and  by  nour 
ishing  his  keen  sense  of  his  superiority  to  the  vulgar 
crowds  of  people.  "  What  proof  of  madness,"  he  asks, 
"  can  there  be  greater  than  to  clamor,  strike,  and  throw 
stones  at  our  best  friends?  Yet  this  is  less  than  the 
multitude  will  do."  His  writings  frequently  betray  how 
warmly  he  welcomed  every  notice  from  others  calculated 
to  soothe  and  confirm  his  self-estimate,  how  angrily  he 
resented  whatever  ruffled  or  tended  to  lower  it.  He 
speaks  of  one  of  his  lesser  writings  as  little  in  bulk,  and 
yet  "great  enough  if  men  count  well  for  great."  Again 


HOBBES.  243 

he  says,  "  the  clamorous  multitude  hide  their  envy  of 
the  present  under  a  reverence  of  antiquity."  He  also 
said  of  his  friend,  the  discoverer  of  the  circulation  of  the 
blood,  "  Harvey  is  the  only  man  I  know,  that,  conquer- 
ing envy,  hath  established  a  new  doctrine  in  his  lifetime." 
Likewise  he  wrote,  when  publishing  his  treatise  on 
Human  Nature, "  I  know  by  experience  how  much  greater 
thanks  will  be  due  than  paid  me  for  telling  men  the 
truth  of  what  men  are.  But  the  burden  I  have  taken 
on  me  I  mean  to  carry  through,  not  striving  to  appease 
but  rather  to  revenge  myself  of  envy  by  increasing  it." 

He  waged  a  fierce  war  for  many  years  with  Wallis  on 
certain  mathematical  questions.  When  Wallis  —  whom 
he  called  "the  pest  of  geometry"  —  taunted  him  with 
flattering  himself  and  maligning  others  in  his  writings, 
he  replied  as  follows  :  "A  certain  Roman  Senator,  having 
propounded  something  in  the  assembly  of  people  which 
they  misliking  made  a  noise  at,  boldly  bade  them  hold 
their  peace,  and  told  them  he  knew  better  what  was  good 
for  the  commonwealth  than  all  they.  And  his  words  are 
transmitted  to  us  as  an  argument  of  his  virtue  :  so  much 
do  truth  and  vanity  alter  the  complexion  of  self-praise." 

His  strong  peculiarities  of  habit  no  less  than  his  ex- 
traordinary powers  marked  Hobbes  out  as  a  man  by 
himself.  Yet,  after  all  his  lonely  walking,  lonely  think- 
ing, lonely  living,  and  repelling  quarrels,  he  clung  warmly 
to  his  friends,  had  a  horror  of  being  left  alone  in  his  ill- 
ness, bequeathed  all  his  property  to  the  faithful  servant 
and  friend  who  had  been  his  amanuensis.  He  was  not 
afraid  of  death,  but  said  he  should  willingly  "  find  some 
hole  to  creep  out  of  the  world  at,"  and  was  wont  to 
amuse  himself  with  choosing  for  the  epitaph  to  be  graven 
on  his  tombstone,  "  This  is  the  true  philosopher's  stone" 

His  toughness  of  stock  and  copiousness  of  force  ena- 
bled him  to  weather  the  storms  of  nearly  a  century.  His 
colossal  bulk  of  mind  and  earnest  search  for  truth  removed 
him  from  the  crowd.  He  was  turned  in  upon  himself 
still  more  by  the  rivalry,  envy,  hate,  slanders,  aggravating 
attacks  provoked  by  his  genius,  fame,  disagreeable  specu- 
lations, hot  partisanship,  and  personal  spleen.  In  half 


244  SKETCHES   OF   LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

philosophic,  half  angry  solitude,  he  sought  to  foster  and 
defend  that  reflex  idea  of  himself  in  whose  extension  and 
firmness  the  essential  comfort  of  life  resides  for  such  men, 
and  every  assault  upon  which  he  naturally  resented  as  a 
blow  at  the  very  vitality  of  his  soul:  His  life,  perforce, 
was  greatly  solitary.  Yet  friendship,  for  the  same  reasons, 
was  particularly  needful  and  precious  to  him,  so  far  as  he 
could  get  it.  The  many  high  compliments  he  received 
from  the  leading  thinkers  of  his  age  must  have  thrilled 
him  with  a  fiery  gladness  impossible  to  colder  and  feebler 
natures.  It  is  pleasant  to  think  of  the  pleasure  he  took 
in  the  dedication  of  Gondibert  to  him  by  Davenant;  also 
of  what  a  luxury  the  flattering  and  eloquent  ode  addressed 
to  him  by  Cowley  must  have  yielded  to  his  sensibility. 

Nor  can  the  snow  which  now  cold  age  does  shed 

Upon  thy  reverend  head 
Quench  or  allay  the  noble  fires  within : 

But  all  which  thou  hast  been, 
And  all  that  youth  can  be,  thou  'rt  yet ; 

So  fully  still  dost  thou 
Enjoy  the  manhood  and  the  bloom  of  wit 
To  things  immortal  time  can  do  no  wrong  ; 
And  that  which  never  is  to  die,  forever  must  be  young. 


LEIBNITZ. 

ALTHOUGH  Leibnitz  for  much  of  his  life  held  an  office 
at  court,  and  carried  on  an  extensive  correspondence  with 
diplomatists,  mathematicians,  and  philosophers,  he  was  a 
lonely  man  from  his  boyhood  to  his  burial.  He  says  : 
"  I  always  inclined  less  to  conversation  than  to  meditation 
and  solitude."  Referring  to  the  time  when,  a  youth  of 
fifteen,  he  was  an  academic  student,  he  says :  "  I  used  to 
walk  to  and  fro  in  a  little  grove  near  Leipzig,  called  the 
Vale  of  Roses,  in  pleasing  and  solitary  meditation,  con- 
sidering the  questions  of  the  Schoolmen."  Prevented 
from  obtaining  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Laws,  he  felt  so 
aggrieved  and  offended  at  the  machinations  of  his  rivals 
that  he  at  once  left  his  native  city,  and  never  returned  to 
Saxony  again,  excepting  for  brief  visits. 


LEIBNITZ.  245 

He  ever  had  a  high  opinion  of  his  own  mind  and  worth, 
and  was  easily  irritated,  though  generous  and  forgiving  in 
F  his  temper.  His  secretary  and  intimate  associate,  Eck- 
hart,  says  it  was  characteristic  of  him  "  to  speak  well  of 
every  one,  put  the  best  construction  on  the  actions  of  oth- 
ers, and  spare  his  enemies  when  having  it  in  his  power  to 
dispossess  them  of  their  places."  He  was  never  married, 
but  lived  by  himself  absorbed  in  gigantic  toils.  Courtiers 
and  people  for  the  most  part  neglected  him.  He  was  a 
superior  being  whom  they  could  not  understand.  The 
clergy  hated  him,  because  he  looked  down  with  pity  on 
their  superstitions ;  and  they  publicly  assailed  him  as  a 
contemner  of  the  ecclesiastical  creed.  He  said  he  had  a 
great  many  ideas  which  he  held  back,  because  the  age 
was  not  ripe  for  them,  and  also  because  he  extremely 
disliked  being  misunderstood  and  misrepresented.  In 
a  letter  to  Burnet  he  says,  in  reference  to  his  own  sit- 
uation :  "There  are  many  things  which  cannot  be  exe- 
cuted by  a  single  isolated  Individual.  But  here  one  hardly 
meets  with  anybody  to  speak  to."  In  connection  with 
this  statement  it  is  pleasant  to  remember  the  beautiful  and 
impressive  incident,  that,  when  he  was  thirty  years  old, 
Leibnitz  paid  a  visit  to  Spinoza,  at  the  Hague.  When 
these  two  vastest  and  loneliest  intellects  of  their  century 
met  in  that  little  poor  Dutch  chamber,  did  the  two  brains 
there  together  hold  more  mind  than  all  the  rest  of 
Europe  ?  Two  years  before  he  died  he  had  formed  a  dis- 
tinct plan  of  a  universal  language  ;  but,  aged,  over-occu- 
pied, solitary,  he  failed  to  complete  and  publish  it.  He 
writes  to  Remond  de  Montfort,  that  he  had  spoken  of  it 
to  several  persons,  and  gained  no  more  attention  than  if 
he  had  related  a  dream.  He  adds  :  "  I  could  easily  work 
it  out  if  I  were  younger,  or  less  busy,  or  enjoyed  the  con- 
versation of  men  who  would  encourage  me,  or  had  by  my 
side  young  men  of  talent."  This  great  man  died  in  the 
midst  of  as  much  local  indifference  as  he  had  lived.  His 
friend  Ker,  who  happened  to  arrive  in  Hanover  on  that 
day,  was  grieved,  not  only  by  the  event,  but  by  the  slight 
nolice  taken  of  it.  The  funeral,  Ker  testifies,  "was  more 
like  that  of  a  highwayman  than  of  one  who  had  been  the 


246  SKETCHES    OF   LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

ornament  of  his  country."  The  faithful  Eckhart  says. 
that  although  the  whole  court  were  invited  to  attend  the 
solemnities,  no  one  appeared  but  himself.  The  Royal 
Academy  of  Sciences  in  Berlin,  of  which  he  was  the 
founder  and  the  first  president,  remained  silent.  The 
Royal  Society  at  London,  of  which  he  was  one  of  the 
oldest  and  most  distinguished  members,  took  not  the 
slightest  notice  of  the  death  of  the  great  rival  of  Newton. 
The  French  Academy  alone  paid  a  tribute  becoming  its 
own  chivalrous  character,  and  worthy  of  one  of  the  great- 
est of  human  minds. 

But  if  Leibnitz  was  neglected  by  the  conspicuous  ob- 
scurities about  him,  in  the  high  tasks  of  his  genius  he  had 
his  place  among  the  most  illustrious  heroes  of  humanity. 
Pilgrims  from  far-away  lands,  who  stand  in  the  aisle  of 
the  church  at  Hanover,  and  read  beneath  their  feet  the 
laconic  inscription,  Ossa  Leibnitii,  thrill  with  reverence  in 
memory  of  him  whose  powerful  thought  is  vibrating  to 
the  ends  of  the  earth,  and  whose  fame  will  penetrate  the 
remotest  future. 

MILTON.       • 

MANY  of  the  chief  conditions  of  spiritual  solitude  met 
in  a  high  degree  in  Milton.  A  proud  and  pure  mind, 
devotion  to  learning,  a  passion  for  liberty,  a  passion  for 
truth  and  virtue,  a  passion  for  lasting  fame,  a  deep  and 
bold  dissent  from  the  prevalent  theological  doctrines  and 
religious  forms  about  him,  general  neglect,  repeated  dan- 
ger, and,  at  last,  blindness.  Numerous  expressions  of 
this  experience  are  to  be  found  in  his  writings.  He  says, 
referring  to  the  text  in  Genesis,  "  Loneliness  is  the  first 
thing  which  God's  eye  named  not  good."  While  yet  a 
young  man  he  wrote  to  his  friend  Diodati,  "  As  to  other 
points,  what  God  may  have  determined  for  me  I  know 
not ;  but  this  I  know,  that  if  he  ever  instilled  an  intense 
love  of  moral  beauty  into  the  breast  of  any  man,  he  has 
instilled  it  into  mine.  Ceres,  in  the  fable,  pursued  not 
her  daughter  with  a  greater  keenness  of  inquiry,  than  I, 
day  and  night,  the  idea  of  perfection.  Hence,  wherever 


MILTON.  247 

I  find  a  man  despising  the  false  estimates  of  the  vulgar, 
and  daring  to  aspire  to  what  the  highest  wisdom  through 
every  age  has  taught  us  as  most  excellent,  —  to  him  I.  unite 
myself  by  a  sort  of  necessary  attachment." 

The  sonnet  in  which  Wordsworth  addresses  him,  and 
describes  his  holy  seclusion  and  his  noble  services,  is  a 
household  word. 

Thy  soul  was  like  a  star,  and  dwelt  apart ; 

Thou  hadst  a  voice  whose  sound  was  like  the  sea: 

Pure  as  the  naked  heavens,  majestic,  free, 

So  didst  thou  travel  on  life's  common  way, 

In  cheerful  godliness  ;  and  yet  thy  heart, 

The  lowliest  duties  on  herself  did  lay. 

The  outrageous  warfare  waged  against  him  by  such  foes 
as  Du  Moulin,  Salmasius,  and  More,  must  have  given 
him  a  keen  relish  for  the  refuge,  of  a  peaceful  privacy. 
And  there  are  repeated  passages  in  his  poems  which 
plainly  reveal  a  temperament  fitted  for  the  benefits  of 
loneliness,  a  mind  accustomed  to  enjoy  the  delights  of 
it.  Thus  he  makes  Adam  say  to  Eve,  — 

If  much  converse  perhaps 
Thee  satiate,  to  short  absence  I  could  yield  ; 
For  solitude  sometimes  is  best  society, 
And  short  retirement  urges  sweet  return. 

And  a  perception  full  of  the  heartiest  feeling  of  reality 
pervades  the  following  lines :  — 

In  sweet  retired  solitude 

He  plumed  his  feathers  and  let  grow  his  wings, 
That  in  the  various  bustle  of  resort 
Were  all  too  ruffled,  and  sometimes  impaired. 

Johnson  wrongfully  accuses  Milton  of  a  dark  revenge- 
fulness,  a  bitter  envy.  His  nature  was  profoundly  sweet, 
gentle,  and  regal.  His  passionate  retorts  and  invectives 
are  not  proofs  of  gall  or  hate,  but  either  oratoric  heats  of 
battle,  or  weapons  wielded  in  self-defence.  He  was  a  man 
of  noble  poetic  angers,  not  of  mean  brooding  enmities. 
When  his  foes  assailed  him  with  ignorance  and  wrong  he 
repelled  their  slanderous  insolence  with  contemptuous  in 
dignation. 


248  SKETCHES   OF    LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

I  did  but  prompt  the  age  to  quit  their  clogs 

By  the  known  rules  of  ancient  liberty, 

When  straight  a  barbarous  noise  environs  me 

Of  owls  and  cuckoos,  asses,  apes,  and  dogs  : 

As  when  those  hinds  that  were  transformed  to  frogs 

Railed  at  Latona's  twin-born  progeny, 

Which  after  held  the  sun  and  moon  in  fee. 

But  this  is  got  by  casting  pearls  to  hogs, 

That  bawl  for  freedom  in  their  senseless  mood, 

And  still  revolt  when  truth  would  set  them  free. 

This  retaliation  shows  more  disturbance  of  spirit  tran  is 
becoming ;  but  to  infer  from  such  language  the  existence 
in  the  writer  of  "  a  malignity  at  whose  frown  hell  grows 
darker,"  is  absurd.  These  jealous  incompetents  had,  in 
their  judgment,  hurled  him  down  into  a  muddy  pit  of 
error  and  wickedness,  from  the  glorious  peak  of  truth 
and  greatness  on  which,  in  his  own  judgment,  he  was 
perched  :  and  the  vehemence  of  his  scorn  simply  meas- 
ures the  intensity  with  which  he  resents  their  injustice 
and  replaces  himself  on  his  height.  The  true  Milton  is 
less  expressed  in  his  rousing  polemic  invectives,  the  trum- 
pet blasts  of  his  embattled  spirit,  than  in  the  melodious 
passages  of  meditative  reminiscence  and  description  in 
which  the  affections  of  his  natural  character  exhale. 

As  one  who  long  in  populous  city  pent, 
Where  houses  thick  and  sewers  annoy  the  air, 
Forth  issuing  on  a  summer's  morn  to  breathe 
Among  the  pleasant  villages  and  farms 
Adjoined,  from  each  thing  met  conceives  delight, 
The  smell  of  grain,  or  tedded  grass,  or  kine, 
Or  dairy,  each  rural  sight,  each  rural  sound ; 
•      If  chance  with  nymph-like  step  fair  virgin  pass, 
What  pleasing  seemed,  for  her  now  pleases  more, 
She  most,  and  in  her  look  sums  all  delight. 

Deserted,  blind,  old,  even  harshly  treated  by  his  un- 
grateful daughters,  composing  his  immortal  poem,  he 
depicts  himself  as  singing, — 

With  mortal  voice,  unchanged 
To  hoarse  or  mute,  though  fallen  on  evil  days, 
On  evil  days  though  fallen,  and  evil  tongues. 
In  darkness,  and  with  dangers  compassed  round, 
And  solitude.     Yet  not  alone  while  thou 


PASCAL.  249 

Visits!  my  slumbers  nightly,  or  when  morn 
Purples  the  east  —  still  govern  thou  my  song, 
Urania,  and  fit  audience  find,  though  few. 

In  this  spirit  he  made  his  age  sublime  as  he  had  made 
his  manhood  heroic.  Such  steady  approving  respect  had 
he  for  himself  as  he  grew  lonelier  in  his  age,  such  grand 
memories  of  his  bygone  deeds,  such  high  imaginative 
communion  with  the  present  and  the  future,  that  we  can- 
not hesitate  to  apply  to  him  his  own  words  descriptive 
of  the  Saviour  :  — 

And  he  still  on  was  led,  but  with  such  thoughts 
Accompanied  of  things  past  and  to  come 
Lodged  in  his  breast,  as  well  might  recommend 
Such  solitude  before  choicest  society. 

And  so  he  died.  And  when  strangers  from  distant 
lands  linger  in  the  chancel  of  Saint  Giles  at  Cripplegate, 
as  they  read  the  inscription  on  his  tomb  they  forget  the 
surrounding  roar  of  London.  They  find  it  difficult  to 
think  of  him  as  sleeping  there.  They  feel  that  he  is  truly 
interred  in  a  monument  which  is  co-extensive  with  the 
civilized  world. 

PASCAL. 

PASCAL  was  a  personality  apart,  with  ideas  proud  as  his 
intellect,  with  faith  apparently  humble  and  sincere  as  his 
heart,  but  in  reality  more  wilful  than  natural,  and  under- 
arched  by  a  scepticism  awful  to  himself.  This  sceptical 
character  of  his  mind  is  conclusively  shown  by  Cousin  in 
his  celebrated  report  to  the  French  Academy  on  the 
"  Thoughts  "  ;  and  later  editors  of  his-  posthumous  writ- 
ings have  brought  to  light  the  unscrupulous  changes  and 
suppressions  practised  by  the  first  editors.  Dr.  Lelut  has 
demonstrated,  in  his  instructive  treatise,  "  L'Amulette  de 
Pascal,"  the  deeply  diseased  condition,  in  his  later  years, 
of  both  the  body  and  the  mind  of  this  great  unfortunate 
genius. 

With  a  nervous  system  overcharged  with  force  and  out 
of  equilibrium,  the  brain  expending  an  abnormal  share 
it* 


250  SKETCHES    OF    LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

of  his  vitality,  his  strange  precocity  deprived  him  of  boy- 
hood. While  others  of  his  age  were  happy  at  their  sports, 
he  was  by  himself,  earnestly  grappling  with  the  deepest 
questions,  now  wresting  brilliant  secrets  from  science  with 
joy  and  glory,  now  musing  over  the  darker  problems  of 
human  nature,  pale,  weary,  sad,  hopelessly  baffled  in  rea- 
son, imperiously  remanded  by  his  education  and  his  heart 
to  faith.  He  early  became  an  invalid,  and  was  scarcely  ever 
after  free  from  pain.  As  time  wore  on  his  state  grew 
worse.  His  excessive  mental  labors  shattered  his  consti- 
tution. A  morbid  depreciation  of  the  worth  of  all  world  • 
ly  aims  gradually  possessed  him.  He  became  extremely 
unhappy,  not  merely  in  his  outward  relations  but  also  in 
his  speculations.  His  vast  genius,  out  of  tune  and  bal- 
ance, saw  disproportion,  misery,  and  frightful  mystery 
everywhere.  He  furnished  another  exemplification  of  the 
truth  that  great  men,  unless  blessed  with  health,  are  more 
unhappy  than  others,  because  their  transcendent  powers 
are  intrinsically  less  harmonized  with  their  earthly  con- 
ditions. Their  faculties  overlap  the  world,  and  the  super- 
fluous parts,  finding  no  correspondent  object,  no  soothing 
returns,  are  turned  into  wretchedness.  Pascal  asks,  "  Shall 
he  who  alone  knows  nature  alone  be  unhappy  ? "  Yes, 
if  knowledge  of  nature  be  the  pioneer  of  discord  and  re- 
bellion against  nature.  Only  let  love  for  what  is  known 
and  conformity  to  it  keep  even  pace  with  knowledge,  and 
the  more  one  knows  the  happier  he  will  be.  But  there  is 
danger  with  great  genius,  especially  if  there  is  any  dis- 
balancement  in  it,  that  perception  will  generate  undue 
feeling,  feeling  out  of  tune  with  the  facts,  and  therefore  a 
source  of  irritable  wretchedness. 

This  is  clearly  to  be  seen  in  the  case  of  Pascal  himself. 
He  wore  an  iron  girdle  stuck  full  of  steel  thorns,  which 
he  pressed  into  his  side  whenever  worldly  thoughts  allured 
him.  "  Seek  no  satisfaction  on  earth,"  he  said  ;  "  hope 
nothing  from  men  ;  your  good  is  in  God  alone."  A  true 
religious  philosophy  would  rather  say,  Seek  a  relative  sat- 
isfaction in  every  normal  fact  of  nature,  every  finite  man- 
ifestation of  the  will  of  God  ;  never  despair  of  your  fellow 
men.  Whatever  the  God  of  nature  has  made  is  good ; 


PASCAL.  251 

whatever  the  God  of  grace  does  is  well.  The  sound  mas- 
ter of  moral  insight  labors  to  ennoble  human  nature  and 
life  by  every  possible  imaginative  aggrandizement  and 
exaltation.  The  school  represented  by  Pascal  strives  to 
demean  human  nature  and  life  by  every  possible  imagina- 
tive impoverishment  and  degradation.  This  direful  mis- 
take is  committed  in  the  imagined  interest  of  a  supernat- 
ural antidote  for  the  bane  of  a  ruined  world.  It  aggravates 
the  evils  it  seeks  to  cure,  by  exciting  what  needs  to  be 
soothed,  namely,  the  friction  of  man  with  his  fate. 

The  noble  but  overstrung  sensibility  of  Pascal  is  shown 
by  the  fact  that  once,  when  Arnauld  seemed  to  prefer 
peace  to  truth,  the  shock  of  grief  and  pain  was  so  great 
that  he  fainted  away.  To  read  his  meditations  on  the 
nature  and  state  of  man,  is  like  wandering  through  some 
mighty  realm  of  desolation,  where  gleams  of  light  fall 
on  majestic  ruins,  lonely  columns,  crumbling  aqueducts, 
shattered  and  moss-grown  temples.  His  logic,  his  vigor, 
his  irony,  did  shining  and  permanent  service  to  morality 
in  the  Provincial  Letters.  But  in  his  "  Thoughts "  a 
dark  tinge  of  disease,  a  perverse  extravagance,  vitiate  the 
unquestionable  originality,  and  give  the  whole  strain  of 
argument  an  unsoundness  as  gloomy  and  pervading  as 
the  intellect  is  powerful  and  the  rhetoric  brilliant.  He 
sees  man  suspended  between  the  two  abysses  of  infinity 
and  nothingness.  He  never  wearies  of  varying  the  mel- 
ancholy antithesis  of  the  sublimity  and  the  contemptible- 
ness  of  man,  the  grandeur  and  the  misery  of  our  nature 
and  lot.  Man  is  a  chimera,  an  incomprehensible  monster, 
a  contradiction,  a  chaos,  judge  of  all  things,  victim  of  all, 
depositary  of  truth,  sewer  of  error,  the  brother  of  the 
brutes,  the  equal  of  the  angels,  the  glory  and  the  scum 
of  the  universe.  He  is  a  closed  and  inexplicable  enigma, 
—  unless  we  accept  the  scheme  of  Christianity  in  the  dog- 
matic exposition  of  the  Catholic  Church.  Original  sin  is 
the  key  to  the  otherwise  incomprehensible  riddle.  The 
violence  of  its  fall  in  Adam  crushed  human  nature  into  a 
mass  of  piteous  and  venerable  ruins,  an  incongruous  col- 
lection of  suns  and  dungheaps. 

The  genius  of  Pascal  is  displayed  in  the  magnificence 


252  SKETCHES   OF   LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

of  his  lamentations,  the  gorgeous  ornaments  with  which 
he  enhances  the  degeneracy  he  describes.  His  disease 
is  revealed  in  the  dismal  melancholy  he  throws  over  all, 
and  in  the  perverse  factitiousness  of  his  remedial  devices. 
"Vulgar  Calvinism,"  Hallam  says,  "exhibits  man  as  a 
grovelling  Caliban,  Pascal  paints  him  as  a  ruined  arch- 
angel." But  both  endeavor  to  exaggerate  the  evils  of 
our  nature  and  deepen  the  darkness  of  our  state,  in  order 
to  lend  increased  preciousness  and  splendor  to  the  super- 
natural remedy.  This  method  surely  violates  the  mod- 
eration of  nature,  the  sanity  of  reason.  Imagination  is 
given  us  to  secure  equilibrium  in  our  powers  and  con- 
ditions, to  bring  in  ideal  compensations  for  actual  defects, 
to  harmonize  our  nature  and  lot.  It  is  a  dreadful  abuse 
to  employ  it  to  multiply  incongruities  and  annoyances, 
enlarge  existing  disbalancements,  and  intensify  the  dis- 
cords already  experienced.  To  see  the  truth  and  conform 
to  it  what  is  out  of  proportion,  is  the  final  cure  for  every 
human  ill.  To  aggravate  a  malady,  half  supposititious, 
so  as  to  give  imaginary  value  to  some  artificial  panacea,  is 
the  method  of  quacks  and  dupes. 

The  soul  of  Pascal  was  a  lonely  battle-field,  —  the  scene 
of  a  struggle  between  opposite  tendencies,  which  must 
sometimes  have  been  as  terrible  as  it  was  noiseless  and 
hidden.  His  logical  acuteness  and  intrepidity  penetrated 
sophisms,  and  exposed  the  innumerable  difficulties  and 
perplexities  of  human  life  in  their  most  formidable  array ; 
while  his  fears,  affections,  weakness,  made  him  cling  to 
the  Catholic  creed.  His  sublime  imagination  pictured 
man  as  a  grain  of  dust  on  the  earth,  the  earth  itself  as  a 
grain  of  dust  in  the  bosom  of  nature,  the  eternal  silence 
of  whose  boundless  spaces  was  frightful  to  him.  Disease 
made  deeper  encroachments  on  his  digestive  organs  and 
on  his  brain.  He  was  weary  of  the  struggles  of  the  few 
for  glory,  sick  of  the  insincerity  and  frivolity  of  the  many; 
and  often  said,  "  I  shall  die  alone."  Although  he  was 
never  personally  a  misanthrope,  his  fearful  insight  of  the 
frenzied  self-love,  the  folly,  vanity,  flippancy,  and  false- 
hood of  common  men  painfully  alienated  him  from  them. 
He  says,  "  If  all  men  knew  what  others  say  of  them,  there 


PASCAL.  253 

would  not  be  four  friends  in  the  world."  And  his  desire 
for  friendly  fellowship,  his  feeling  of  his  own  loneliness, 
appear  clearly  enough  from  the  following  paragraph  :  — 
"  The  little  communication  that  we  can  have  in  the  study 
of  the  abstract  sciences  disgusted  me  with  them.  But  I 
expected  to  find  many  companions  in  the  study  of  man. 
I  was  deceived.  There  are  still  fewer  who  study  man 
than  who  study  geometry." 

He  had  suffered  two  attacks  of  partial  paralysis  in  his 
limbs,  attacks  which  seemed,  however,  not  to  touch  his 
mind.  While  in  this  weak  condition  driving  across  one 
of  the  bridges  over  the  Seine,  the  horses  took  fright  and 
leaped  off,  leaving  the  carriage  poised  on  the  edge.  The 
shock  affected  him  so  severely  that  he  from  that  time  fre- 
quently had  the  hallucination  of  an  abyss  yawning  at  his 
side.  In  this  state,  his  sister,  a  devoted  nun,  persuaded 
him  forever  to  abandon  the  world.  Disappointed,  sick, 
excited,  his  capacious  mind  hungering  for  truth  and  peace 
in  the  infinite,  he  turned  with  a  morbid  eagerness  to  the 
seclusion  and  austerity  of  Port  Royal.  Here  he  gave 
the  last  eight  years  of  his  life  —  from  his  thirty-first  to 
his  thirty-ninth  year  —  almost  exclusively  to  religious 
meditation,  and  to  literary  labors  for  the  cause  of  Chris- 
tianity. 

The  hypochondriacal  state  of  Pascal  betrays  itself 
through  all  his  poetic  sophistry  and  glorious  declamation. 
Health,  without  denying  the  evil  of  the  world,  enjoys  its 
good,  and  tries,  by  making  the  best  of  it,  to  rise  into 
something  better.  It  is  disease  that  reacts  against  it  in 
disgust  and  horror,  and  paints  it  a  thousand  times  worse 
than  it  is,  in  order  to  lend  a  keener  relish  to  some  theo- 
retic good.  The  incongruities  of  human  nature  are  bet- 
ter explained  by  the  doctrine  of  a  tentative  progress 
towards  our  destiny,  an  advance  still  incomplete,  with 
complicated  faculties  not  yet'  harmonized,  than  by  the 
doctrine  of  the  Fall,  which  simply  adds  a  new  problem 
more  fearful  than  the  one  it  professes  to  solve.  If  man 
stands  midway  between  infinity  and  nothing,  —  which  is 
an  oratoric,  not  a  philosophic,  expression,  —  his  desires 
allying  him  to  that,  his  attainments  to  this  :  if  he  ciasps 


2^4  SKETCHES   OF   LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

hands  on  one  side  with  the  ape,  on  the  other  side  with  the 
angel,  it  is  that  he  has  risen  thus  high  and  his  passions 
are  not  yet  equilibrated  with  his  conditions,  rather  than 
that  he  has  fallen  thus  low,  and  in  his  plunge  been  caught 
there  by  grace,  and  is  now  forn  by  the  contradictory  at- 
tractions of  salvation  and  perdition.  The  facts  of  the 
problem  are  far  more  satisfactorily  solved  by  the  idea  that 
the  exorbitant  faculties  and  demands  of  man  are  the  pre 
paratory  rudiments  of  the  divine  estate  he  is  to  inherit, 
than  by  the  idea  that  they  are  the  discordant  fragments 
of  a  celestial  state  from  which  he  has  been  expelled. 
Man  is  a  child  of  nature  sensuously  chained  to  the  earth, 
but  ideally  scaling  the  heights  of  immensity  ;  not  a  lord  of 
heaven  tumbled  in  ruins,  mourning  over  what  he  has  lost 
while  clutching  aj;  what  is  within  his  reach.  But  Pascal 
took  the  latter  view.  He  fought  down  his  doubts,  or 
thrust  them  out  of  sight,  and  clung  frantically  to  the  tra- 
ditional theology  as  a  shipwrecked  man  to  a  spar.  We  see 
his  face  look  out  at  us  as  he  drifts,  a  white  and  piteous 
speck  of  humanity,  in  the  black  flood.  He  regarded  the 
soul  as  the  convulsed  ground  of  a  supernatural  conflict 
between  the  fiends  of  nature  and  the  ministry  of  grace. 
He  called  man  a  reed  that  thinks.  His  soul  was  alone, 
a  geometric  point  of  thought  in  the  infinitude  of  space. 
Impelled  by  the  grandeur  of  his  soaring  mind  and  the 
wretchedness  of  his  tortured  body,  both  aggravated  by 
the  theological  scheme  reciprocally  ministering  to  them 
and  ministered  to  by  them,  he  was  constantly  darting  to 
and  fro  between  the  two  poles  of  imagination,  All  and 
Nothing,  and  constantly  associating  one  of  these  mon- 
strous extremes  with  everything  human.  Shocked  and 
lacerated  by  such  a  tremendous  vibration,  no  wonder  his 
strength  so  early  gave  way,  no  wonder  his  view  of  life  was 
so  overwrought.  The  disease  which  the  surgeons  laid 
bare  in  his  gangrened  vitals-  and  brain,  is  equally  revealed 
by  a  psychological  autopsy  of  his  writings,  gangrenous 
blotches  interspersing  the  splendid  and  electric  pages. 
Thus,  in  his  self-depreciating  unhappiness  and  solitude, 
he  affirmed  that  it  was  sinful  for  any  one  to  love  a  crea- 
ture so  unworthy  as  he,  and  so  soon  to  perish. 


ROUSSEAU.  255 

Perhaps  the  most  pathetic  passage  from  his  pen,  — 
when  we  view  it  in  the  light  of  his  pure  character,  tran- 
scendent talents,  and  sad  biography, — is  the  following: 
"  Man  has,  springing  from  the  sense  of  his  continued 
misery,  a  secret  instinct  that  leads  him  to  seek  diversion 
and  employment  from  without.  And  he  has,  remaining 
from  the  original  greatness  of  his  nature,  another  secret 
instinct,  which  teaches  him  that  happiness  can  exist  only 
in  repose.  From  these  two  contrary  instincts  there  arises 
in  him  an  obscure  propensity  which  prompts  him  to  seek 
repose  through  agitation,  and  even  to  fancy  that  the  con- 
tentment he  does  not  enjoy  will  be  found,  if,  by  strug- 
gling yet  a  little  longer,  he  can  open  a  door  to  rest."  He 
had  known  long  ages  in  thought  and  feeling,  but  not  forty 
years  in  time,  when  death  kindly  opened^  for  him  the  door 
to  rest. 

ROUSSEAU. 

ROUSSEAU  was  so  lonely  a  man  that  the  ground  of  his 
life  was  one  long  soliloquy,  interrupted  only  as  its  sur- 
face now  and  then  broke  into  distasted  dialogues.  He 
had  singularities  which  made  sustained  companionship 
extremely  difficult ;  singularities  for  the  understanding  of 
which  few  of  his  critics  have  had  the  only  available  key, 
namely,  sympathetic  insight.  The  connection  of  heart 
and  brain  in  him  was  wonderfully  intimate,  the  quantity 
and  obstinacy  of  emotion  extraordinary.  His  states  of 
consciousness  had  greater  impulsive  force  in  their  origin, 
greater  vascular  diffusion  in  his  system,  greater  persist- 
ency in  his  nerves,  than  those  of  other  people.  In  his 
youth  he  sought  to  avoid  the  other  boys  who  wanted  him 
to  join  them  in  their  sports.  "But,"  he  says,  "once 
really  in  their  games,  I  was  more  ardent  and  went  fur- 
ther than  any.  Difficult  to  start,  and  difficult  to  re- 
strain —  such  was  ever  my  disposition."  Again  he  says : 
"  If  no  better  than  others,  I  am  at  least  different  from 
them.  I  am  made  unlike  any  one  I  have  ever  seen." 
Tragedies  lie  latent  in  those  simple,  daring  words. 

A  truer  picture  of  the  shaded  glory  and  prominent 


256  SKETCHES   OF   LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

wretchedness  of  the  youth  of  genius  has  never  been 
drawn  than  that  painted  in  the  "  Confessions  "  of  Rous- 
seau. At  sixteen,  discontented  with  himself  and  every- 
thing about  him,  devoured  by  desires  of  whose  object  he 
could  form  no  conception,  weeping  without  any  cause  for 
tears,  sighing  for  he  knew  not  what,  given  up  to  caressing 
the  creations  of  his  own  fancy,  he  was  happy  only  when 
he  could  escape,  alone,  among  the  lonely  charms  of 
nature,  and  abandon  himself  to  impassioned  visions, 
ideas,  and  dreams.  "  My  delight  in  the  world  of  imagi- 
nation and  my  disgust  with  the  real  world  gave  rise  to 
that  love  of  solitude  which  has  never  since  left  me.  This 
disposition,  apparently  so  misanthropic  and  so  melan- 
choly, in  reality  proceeds  from  a  heart  all  too  fond,  too 
loving,  too  tender;  a  heart  which,  failing  to  find  real 
beings  with  whom  to  sympathize,  is  fain  to  feed  on  fic- 
tions." 

In  the  case  of  Rousseau,  the  sensitive  pride  imbedded 
in  his  constitution,  too  deep  and  constant  for  his  own 
recognition,  his  fiery  and  persistent  consciousness  of  his 
own  soul,  of  objects,  ideas,  and  emotions,  required  a 
soothing,  deferential  sympathy  more  pronounced  and  sus- 
tained than  men  were  willing  to  give.  The  failure  to 
receive  what  he  wanted  cut  him  to  the  quick.  He  re- 
garded the  disappointment  as  a  cruel  injustice,  and  re- 
treated for  solace  into  his  own  fancy  and  into  seclusion. 
"  The  beings  of  my  imagination,"  he  declares,  "  disgust 
me  with  all  the  society  I  have  left.''  Yes ;  because  the 
reactions  towards  him  of  the  beings  of  his  imagination 
were  under  the  domination  of  his  own  will,  while  the  per- 
sons he  met  in  society  exercised  their  own  opinions  and 
feelings  towards  him,  however  much  they  fell  below  his. 
It  is  plain  that  for  many  years  he  disliked  society  because 
he  did  not  shine  in  it  as  he  thought  he  ought.  In  his  first 
letter  to  Malesherbes  he  repudiates  this  conclusion,  even 
for  the  past,  when  it  was  true,  because  it  was  now  no  longer 
true  He  claims  as  the  real  reason,  "  An  indomitable 
spirit  of  liberty,  arising  less  from  pride  than  from  my  in- 
credible dislike  of  effort.  The  slightest  duty  laid  on  me 
in  social  life  is  insupportable.  Therefore  is  ordinary 


ROUSSEAU.  257 

intercourse  with  men  odious  to  me  ;  but  intimate  friend- 
ship is  dear,  because  it  imposes  no  duty  ;  one  follows  his 
heart,  and  all  is  done."  A  deeper  analysis  would  have 
shown  him  that  this  "  indomitable  spirit  of  liberty  "  was 
itself  based  on  a  perversity  of  pride.  Friendship  was 
dear  because  it  reflected  himself  to  himself;  ordinary 
intercourse  was  odious  because  it  asked  him  equally  to 
reflect  others  to  themselves.  He  would  not  have«been 
unhappy  in  society  if  he  had  been  either  humble  in  him- 
self or  indifferent  as  to  the  opinions  others  entertained 
of  him.  To  have  a  high  idea  of  self  and  to  need  the 
sympathy  of  others  to  sustain  it,  is  to  be  miserable  in  all 
society  except  the  most  congenial.  The  only  cure  is  to 
be  found  either  in  self-sufficingness  or  in  self-renuncia- 
tion. 

The  fervid  quickness  and  strength  of  Rousseau's  feel- 
ings keyed  him  on  so  high  a  pitch  that  he  could  hardly 
sink  into  contentful  unison  with  others.  Finding  every 
response  distressingly  inadequate  to  his  craving  he  al- 
most'ceased  to  ask  a  response.  "The  evening,"  he 
writes,  "  when  I  have  spent  the  day  alone,  finds  me 
happy  and  gay ;  when  I  have  passed  the  time  in  com- 
pany it  finds  me  taciturn  and  depressed."  Accordingly 
he  took  refuge  in  imagination  and  solitude.  Once,  when 
his  friend  Diderot  had  long  been  confined  in  the  Bastile, 
he  obtained  permission  to  visit  him.  On  being  admitted 
he  rushed  forward  in  convulsive  joy,  fell  on  his  neck,  and 
covered  his  face  with  kisses  and  tears.  Diderot,  instead 
of  returning  the  demonstration  of  affection,  coolly  said  to 
his  jailer  :  "  You  see,  sir,  how  my  friends  love  me."  The 
ice  that  fell  on  his  heart  in  that  moment  poor  Rousseau 
never  forgot.  And  when,  at  a  later  time,  Diderot,  with 
direct  reference  to  him,  said  that  no  one  but  a  bad  man 
could  love  to  live  in  solitude,  it  was  no  wonder  that  with  a 
deep  sense  of  injury  he  indignantly  repelled  the  assertion. 
One  of  his  most  characteristic  works,  published  after  his 
death,  was  entitled  "  Reveries  of  a  Lonely  Walker."  The 
first  reverie  begins  with  these  words  :  "  Behold  me,  then, 
alone  on  the  earth,  with  no  brother,  neighbor,  friend,  so- 
ciety, save  myself."  And  on  a  later  page  he  writes  :  "  I 


258  SKETCHES   OF   LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

was  born  with  a  natural  love  for  solitude,  which  has  grown 
the  more  I  have  known  men."  His  pride  was  incompara- 
bly greater  than  his  vanity,  making  it  difficult  for  him  to 
sympathize  with  those  socially  above  him.  His  democratic 
dislike  for  royalty  and  the  nobility  was  vehement.  But 
his  sympathy  with  his  inferiors  was  easy  and  strong.  He 
even  says  :  "My  dog  is  not  my  servant,  but  my  friend." 
When  the  pent  lava-flood  rose  too  high  in  his  breast,  it 
forced  a  ravaging  vent  in  literature,  setting  whole  coun- 
tries aflame,  and  fevering  successive  generations.  His 
electric  words,  as  fresh  to-day  as  a  hundred  years  ago,  as 
fresh  a  hundred  years  hence  as  to-day,  compel  sighs  and 
tears  to  answer  them,  and  can  strike  no  inflammable  soul 
without  kindling  it  into  a  blaze.  From  the  nature  of  the 
case  it  was  scarcely  to  be  expected  that  such  a  man  would 
achieve  peaceful  and  sufficing  intercourse  with  his  con- 
temporaries. Thirsting  for  an  ocean  of  love  and  admira- 
tion, when  but  a  cupful  was  offered  he  turned  away  dis- 
appointed, chagrined,  unhappy,  and  fled  into  the  wild  and 
lovely  retreats  of  the  country,  to  soothe  his  fever  with  the 
grass  and  rocks,  the  snows,  the  woods,  the  waters,  and 
the  stars.  The  expression  he  gave  to  his  impassioned 
sensibility  for  the  charms  of  romantic  scenery  and  the 
sweets  of  loneliness  has  impregnated  much  of  subsequent 
literature,  and  has  given  him  a  high  rank  among  the  mis- 
sionaries of  the  love  of  nature  and  solitude. 

When  staying  at  Vevay,  on  the  borders  of  Lake  Leman, 
he  experienced  overpowering  expansions  of  sentiment. 
"  My  heart  poured  itself  out  in  a  thousand  innocent  and 
ardent  joys.  Melting  into  tenderness  I  sighed  and  wept 
like  a  child.  How  often,  stopping  to  indulge  my  feel- 
ings, seated  on  some  projecting  piece  of  rock,  I  occupied 
myself  with  watching  my  tears  drop  into  the  stream." 
This  was  morbid  sentimentality,  beyond  a  question.  But 
it  is  unjust  to  stigmatize  it  thus,  as  if  that  were  all.  This 
wealth  of  soul,  this  passionate  mental  sensibility  so  much 
above  the  common  endowment,  was  the  hiding-place  of 
his  genius. 

Theodore  Parker  wrote  in  his  diary,  "  I  have  just  been 
reading  the  Confessions  of  Rousseau.  A  thief !  a  liar  1 


ROUSSEAU.  259 

a  great  knave  !  —  how  I  abhor  him  !  "  And  to  give  this 
as  the  proper  valuation  of  the  man  whose  immense  fire- 
soul  inspired  whole  nations  and  ages  with  the  love  of 
nature,  the  love  of  liberty,  the  love  of  man,  and  the  love 
of  nobleness  !  The  estimate  is  as  fair  and  adequate  as 
the  estimate  pronounced  by  Sir  Isaac  Newton  on  the  art 
of  sculpture,  when  he  called  the  statuary  in  the  gallery  of 
the  Duke  of  Devonshire  "  stone  dolls."  The  purloining 
of  the  ribbon  and  the  dastardly  falsehood  he  told  to  con- 
ceal the  act,  were  not  chronic  traits  of  the  character  of 
Rousseau,  but  violent  deviations  from  it ;  and  he  atoned 
for  them  by  the  heroic  confession  of  his  guilt  before  the 
whole  world.  His  foibles  and  vices,  gross  as  they  were, 
would  appear  venial  in  contrast  with  those  of  the  most  of 
his  compeers,  had  these  unveijed  their  shame  as  fully  as 
he,  for  a  high  moral  purpose,  did  his.  It  is  to  be  remem- 
bered that  he  has  made  us  know  the  very  worst  of  him, 
so  stripping  his  soul  and  life  in  the  "Confessions"  that 
he  might  dare,  as  he  startlingly  affirmed,  present  himself 
before  the  judgment-seat  of  God  with  his  book  in  his 
hand  !  And,  on  the  other  side,  the  mass  and  keenness 
of  his  love  for  mankind  and  for  moral  beauty  were  super- 
lative, in  spite  of  his  frequent  personal  defections.  Des 
pite  those  defections,  too,  he  defended  the  cause  and 
served  the  interests  of  freedom,  virtue,  and  humanity, 
with  an  eloquence  never  equalled,  and  with  a  practical 
effectiveness  rarely  surpassed.  One  of  the  best  read  and 
wisest  writers  of  recent  days  says  :  "  The  modern  fashion 
of  gentleness  in  feeling  and  manners  was  introduced 
mainly  through  the  influence  of  Rousseau."  He  recalled 
mothers  to  the  nursing  of  their  own  children.  He  vin- 
dicated with  peerless  energy  the  simplicities  of  nature 
against  the  cruel  corruptions  of  luxurious  conventionality. 
He  was  the  first  French  gentleman  to  put  off  the  wearing 
of  gold  lace  and  a  sword,  and  adopt  a  simple  costume. 
He  inaugurated  the  most  invaluable  reforms  in  educa- 
tion, and  in  behalf  of  the  equal  rights  of  all  men  struck 
blows  that  made  the  old  despotisms  of  Europe 'reel  on 
their  thrones.  And  as  to  his  jealousy,  quarrels,  moral 
extravagances,  it  is  to  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  sufferings 


260  SKETCHES    OF    LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

of  disappointment  and  disease,  together  with  the  various 
peculiar  trials"  to  which  he  was  subjected,  had  repeatedly 
wrought  him  into  a  state  of  virtual  insanity  :  "  His  mind 
had  grown  suspicion's  sanctuary."  To  name  the  men  of 
illustrious  worth,  from  Kant  to  Channing,  from  Schiller 
to  Whittier,  who,  well  aware  of  his  vices,  have  yet  loved 
and  honored  him  for  his  matchless  merit,  would  be  an- 
swer enough  to  an  abusive  condemnation  of  him  by 
wholesale.  His  genius  is  a  glory  and  inspiration  to  his 
race ;  his  services  claim  grateful  homage ;  his  errors  and 
sins  plead  for  forbearance. 
Schiller  says  :  — 

In  Rousseau,  Christians  marked  their  victim — when 
Rousseau  enlisted  Christians  into  men  ! 

Banned  by  church  and  state,  hated  by  bigots,  feared 
by  good  men,  unloved  by  the  common  people  whose 
wrongs  had  so  deeply  moved  him,  he  lived  apart  and 
misunderstood.  He  reminds  us  herein  of  the  remark 
made  by  Zimmermann :  "  There  is  always  something 
great  in  the  man  against  whom  the  world  exclaims,  at 
whom  every  one  throws  a  stone,  on  whose  character  all 
attempt  to  fasten  a  thousand  crimes  without  being  able 
to  prove  one."  Rousseau  rejected  not  the  sanctities  and 
authorities  of  nature  and  conscience,  only  the  base  coun- 
terfeits substituted  for  them. 

For  peace  or  rest  too  well  he  saw 

The  fraud  of  priests,  the  wrong  of  law ; 

And  felt  how  hard  between  the  two 

Their  breath  of  pain  the  millions  drew. 

A  prophet-utterance  strong  and  wild, 

The  weakness  of  an  unweaned  child, 

A  sun-bright  hope  for  human  kind, 

And  self-despair  —  in  him  combined. 

The  love  lie  sent  forth,  void  returned  ; 

The  fame  that  crowned  him  scorched  and  burned, 

Burning,  yet  cold,  and  drear,  and  lone  — 

A  fire-mount  in  a  frozen  zone. 

Born  with  delicate  organs  and  irritable  nerves,  devel- 
oping a  precocious  sensibility,  his  early  reading  of  Plu- 
tarch and  romances  joined  with  his  native  bent  to  blend 


ROUSSEAU.  26 1 

in  his  soul  the  heroic  ideality  of  Rome  and  Sparta  with 
the  poetic  ideality  of  chivalry.  Lacking  the  equilibrium 
of  sober  reason,  at  the  frequent  sight  of  individual  in- 
stances of  cruelty  and  meanness  he  reacted  from  his  high- 
strung  notions  of  absolute  good  and  human  perfectibility 
into  a  wretched  despondency.  Had  he  invariably  turned 
from  the  special  examples  of  wrong  to  the  general  laws 
of  right,  to  the  deep,  steady,  moral  sanctions  and  tenden- 
cies in  the  nature  of  things  and  in  the  nature  of  man,  he 
might  have  been  happy.  But  he  kept  up  a  vibratory 
action  between  the  thought  of  himself  and  the'  thought 
of  those  he  disliked  or  suspected.  And  he  had  known 
but  too  many  reasons  for  dislike  and  suspicion.  Thrown 
into  contact  with  many  vile  characters,  he  suffered  base 
misinterpretations  at  their  hands.  He  was  so  often  be- 
lied, cheated,  slandered,  that  his  outraged  mind  took  on 
a  chronic  impression  of  his  wrongs  and  colored  the  whole 
world  with  them.  He  lost  his  health  and  became  a  hyp- 
ochondriac, tremulously  shrinking  from  contact  with  men. 
Henri  Martin  says  :  "  He  fancied  himself  surrounded 
with  a  universal  conspiracy  to  degrade  his  character  and 
blight  his  memory  before  posterity.  Instead  of  exagger- 
ating his  influence  he  exaggerated  his  isolation.  He 
disbelieved  the  sincerity  of  the  disciples  who  flocked  to 
him  ;  and  did  not  taste  the  highest  consolation,  to  a  heart 
like  his,  of  enjoying  the  good  that  he  had  done  to  his 
fellow-beings.  This  was  doubtless  a  harsh  expiation  of 
the  offences  he  may  have  committed  in  this  world." 

Unquestionably  there  is  a  basis  for  the  severe  judg- 
ment pronounced  on  him  by  Joubert,  who  yet  ascribes  to 
him  a  vast  moral  superiority  over  Voltaire.  Joubert  says 
that  Rousseau  was  envious,  vain,  proud,  voluptuous,  irre- 
ligious in  his  piety,  corrupt  in  his  severity,  dogmatic 
against  authority,  discontented  with  everything  beyond 
himself,  a  beggar  basking  in  the  sun  and  deliciously  de- 
spising the  human  race  !  I  cite  this  judgment  that  it  may 
have  its  effect ;  for  there  is  a  truth  in  it,  though  it  is  only 
one  side  of  the  truth,  and  that  side  most  uncharitably 
heightened.  He  did  voluptuously  pamper  the  notion  of 
himself,  had  the  egoistic  vices  of  excessive  sentiment  and 


262  SKETCHES   OF    LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

an  over-heated  brain.  He  was  his  own  Pygmalion.  But 
this  was  a  morbid  reaction  from  an  unworthy  society,  and 
rather  deserves  a  sigh  than  a  curse.  It  is  the  grand,  un- 
spotted Fichte  who  says  :  "  Rousseau  would  have  been  as 
modest  and  happy  as  his  critics,  had  he  been  tormented 
with  as  few  noble  aspirations." 

The  reader  who  is  swift  to  blame  the  faults  of  Rous- 
seau should  remember  his  merits,  pity  his  woe,  and  learn 
to  avoid  his  mistakes.  For  our  own  part  we  like  best  to 
leave  him  with  the  words  of  his  grateful  friend,  the  author 
of  "  Paul  and  Virginia."  Bernardin  St.  Pierre  says  :  "  I 
derived  inexpressible  satisfaction  from  his  society.  What 
I  prized  still  more  than  his  genius  was  his  probity.  He 
was  one  of  the  few  literary  characters  tried  in  the  furnace 
of  affliction,  to  whom  you  could,  with  perfect  security, 
confide  your  most  secret  thoughts.  Even  when  he  de- 
viated, and  became  the  victim  of  himself  or  of  others,  he 
could  forget  his  own  misery  in  devotion  to  the  welfare  of 
mankind.  He  was  uniformly  the  advocate  of  the  miser- 
able. There  might  be  inscribed  on  his  tomb  these  affect- 
ing words  from  that  Book  of  which,  during  the  last  years 
of  his  life,  he  carried  always  about  him  some  select  pas- 
sages :  '  His  sins,  which  are  many,  are  forgiven ;  for  he 
loved  much.' " 

ZIMMERMANN. 

THE  fame  of  his  treatise  on  the  "  Influence  of  Soli- 
tude "  has  echoed  the  name  of  Zimmermann  through  the 
world.  Born  at  Brugg,  a  little  town  on  the  banks  of  the 
Aar,  near  Zurich,  he  received  an  elaborate  education 
covering  the  various  provinces  of  history,  science,  philos- 
ophy, and  poetry.  His  masculine  understanding  made 
him  a  good  proficient  in  mathematics,  politics,  and  statis- 
tics, while  his  uncommon  sensibilities  and  taste  gave  him 
delighted  range  in  the  richer  field  of  romantic  literature. 
He  was  familiar  with  the  Greek  and  Latin  poets,  the  best 
German  and  French  authors,  and  the  English  Shake- 
speare, Pope,  Thomson,  and  Young.  He  must  have 
had  by  nature  not  only  a  clear  and  powerful  intelligence, 
but  also  an  unusually  tender  and  noble  heart. 


ZIMMERMANN.  263 

He  was  greatly  capable  of  enthusiastic  admirations. 
When  still  a  mere  youth,  studying  his  profession  at  Got- 
tingen  under  the  celebrated  Haller,  he  felt  the  warmest 
love  and  reverence  for  this  great  physician,  formed  rela- 
tions of  charming  intimacy  with  him,  and  afterwards 
wrote  a  glowing  life  of  him.  In  his  old  age,  the  last 
flame  of  his  hero-worship  broke  out  with  tenacious  heat 
and  brilliancy  in  connection  with  the  king  of  Prussia, 
Frederick  the  Great.  His  soul  was  fitted  to  enjoy  friend- 
ship in  its  most  sacred  delicacies.  His  writings  and  his 
life  abound  with  the  proofs.  What  a  gracious  charm  of 
sincerity  and  fervor  breathes  in  his  numerous  allusions  to 
his  friends  in  his  literary  works  !  This  is  especially  the 
case  when  he  refers,  as  over  and  over  he  does  in  his 
"  Solitude,"  to  Lavater,  Hotze,  Hirtzel,  Tissot  He  was 
highly  esteemed  by  his  friends,  on  whom  his  many  noble 
qualities  made  their  proper  impression.  We  have  a  life 
of  him  written  by  Tissot,  who  does  full  justice  to  his 
renowned  and  lamented  associate. 

He  was  exceedingly  fortunate,  too,  in  his  wife.  A 
.niece  of  Haller,  she  was  lovely  in  person  and  mind,  with 
the  mildest  temper,  the  softest  voice,  extreme  cultivation 
and  brightness,  and  fascinating  manners.  While  she 
lived,  she  was  his  sweet  and  sure  asylum  from  every  care. 
When  dying,  she  said,  "  O  my  poor  Zimmermann  !  who 
will  understand  thee  now  ?  "  The  first  shock  of  tangible 
affliction  he  had  known  was  her  death  :  the  second,  fol- 
lowing a  few  years  later,  was  the  death,  by  consumption, 
of  his  only  daughter,  whose  worth  he  has  affectingly  cel- 
ebrated in  his  literary  masterpiece.  Some  time  later,  he 
married,  again,  a  beautiful  and  estimable  lady,  whose  as- 
siduous fondness  alleviated  as  far  as  possible  the  miseries 
of  his  remaining  years.  For,  gifted  as  Zimmermann  was 
with  talents  and  accomplishments,  true  and  kind  as  his 
friends  were,  widely  as  his  celebrity  as  author  and  phy- 
sician extended,  he  was  still,  a  great  deal  of  the  time,  a 
wretchedly  unhappy  man. 

Goethe,  who  had  considerable  intercourse  with  him, 
has  left  an  incisive  sketch  of  this  vehemently  impulsive 
nature,  outwardly  polished  and  self-controlled,  inwardly 


264       SKETCHES  OF  LONELY  CHARACTERS. 

untamed  and  exacting.  Zimmermann  was  the  precise 
opposite,  he  says,  of  those  persons  who  dance  about  in 
frivolous  delight  over  the  vacant  nothings  which  they 
are ;  he  had  great  deserts  with  no  inward  satisfaction. 
His  severity  towards  his  children,  —  even  towards  the 
favorite  daughter  whom  he  so  eloquently  mourned,  —  was 
"  a  partial  insanity,  a  continuous  moral  homicide,  which, 
affer  having  sacrificed  them,  he  at  last  directed  against 
himself."  Yet  Goethe  generously  says  he  was  himself 
deeply  indebted  to  this  brave,  rich-souled,  most  instruct- 
ed and  public-spirited  man  ;  and  adds  that  all  who  un- 
derstand the  sad  life  he  led  will  not  condemn  him,  but 
pity  him. 

The  unsocial  side  of  Zimmermann  was  based  in  two- 
fold disease  :  first,  the  mental  disease  of  an  excessively 
sharp  and  constant  desire  to  be  appreciated,  to  be  noticed 
and  admired  ;  second,  the  bodily  disease  of  hypochon- 
dria, —  that  sickly  irritability  which  results  from  an  over- 
tasking of  the  nervous  system.  Carlyle  says  :  "  He  had 
an  immense  conceit  of  himself,  and  generally  too  thin  a 
skin  for  this  world.  A  person  of  fine,  graceful  intellect, 
high,  proud  feelings,  and  tender  sensibilities,  hypo- 
chondria was  the  main  company  he  had."  He  suffered 
dreadfully  from  what  may  be  called  social  hyperesthesia, 
a  morbid  over-feeling  of  the  relations  between  himself 
and  others.  At  twenty,  while  yet  a  student  in  the  Uni- 
versity, he  wrote  to  his  friend  Tissot,  "  I  pass  every  hour 
of  my  life  here  like  a  man  who  is  determined  not  to  be 
forgotten  by  posterity."  Later,  when  established  as  a 
physician  in  his  native  village,  the  feeling  of  his  own  su- 
periority to  the  rude  people  around  him  destroyed  all 
comfort  in  intercourse  with  them.  Still  later,  when  pro- 
moted to  a  more  courtly  sphere,  as  physician  to  the  king 
of  Hanover,  a  keen  perception  of  the  neglect  he  received 
from  some,  of  the  envy  and  gall  of  others,  of  the  innu- 
merable foibles  and  vices  of  most,  incessantly  nettled  and 
depressed  him,  and  kept  him  in  a  ferment  of  misery. 
Had  he  possessed  a  stable  self-complacency,  contempt- 
uous of  foreign  opinion,  or  calmly  superior  to  it ;  could 
he  have  been  content  with  the  approval  of  his  own  con- 


ZIMMERMANN.  265 

science,  trying  himself  by  the  fixed  standard  of  duty, — • 
his  distress  and  melancholy  would  have  been  unknown. 
But  the  idea  and  desire  of  being  thought  highly  of  by  all 
were  nailed  to  his  imagination  and  heart,  and  they  fast- 
ened him  in  misery. 

His  impartial  biographer  says,  "  Many  parts  of  his 
work  betray  the  feebleness  of  his  nerves,  and  the  peevish- 
ness of  his  temper.  But  there  was  a  striking  difference 
between  his  manners  and  his  writings.  When  with 
others,  he  was  always  generous,  gentle  and  polite,  in- 
capable of  saying  an  offensive  word.  He  always  made 
his  patients  his  friends,  by  the  unwearied  complaisance 
of  his  attentions.  But  the  moment  he  was  alone,  and  at 
his  desk,  his  urbanity  left  him,  and  he  grew  satirical :  his 
natural  energy,  his  vehement  love  of  virtue  and  hatred  of 
vice,  carried  him  away,  and  he  painted  the  worse  charac- 
teristics of  men  in  the  liveliest  colors."  His  very  words 
seem  to  tingle  with  indignation,  when  he  speaks  of  hear- 
ing dolts  praised  for  their  learning,  and  atrocious  villains 
complimented  on  their  well-known  humanity.  He  is  mis- 
anthropic because  the  glowing  height  of  his  ideal  of 
humanity  ironically  condemns  the  base  deviations  from  it 
which  are  so  common.  If  he  said,  "  Who  lives  with 
wolves  must  join  in  their  howls,"  he  also  said,  "  He  alone 
is  fit  for  solitude  who  is  like  nobody,  liked  by  nobody, 
and  likes  nobody." 

The  chief  and  chronic  happiness  of  man  ought  to  arise 
from  himself  and  his  own  conduct.  Feeling  that  his  wit- 
ness is  on  high,  he  ought  to  be  satisfied  with  the  approval 
of  his  own  conscience,  and  not  rise  and  fall  in  soul,  like 
a  barometer,  with  the  favors  and  frowns  of  other  men. 
The  misery  of  Zimmermann  originated  in  his  inability  to 
secure  this  self-sufficing  independence.  It  is  astonishing 
to  see  how  clearly  he  knew  the  truth  he  so  grossly  failed 
to  practise.  "  It  is  not,"  he  says,  "  my  doctrine,  that  men 
should  reside  in  deserts,  or  sleep  like  owls  in  the  hollow 
trunks  of  trees ;  but  I  am  anxious  to  expel  from  their 
minds  the  excessive  fear  which  they  too  frequently  enter- 
tain of  the  opinion  of  the  world.  I  would,  as  far  as  is 
consistent  with  their  respective  stations  in  life,  render 


266  SKETCHES   OF   LONELY   CHARACTERS 

them  independent.  I  wish  them  to  break  the  fetters  of 
prejudice,  to  imbibe  a  just  contempt  for  the  vices  of  so- 
ciety, and  to  seek  occasionally  a  rational  solitude,  where 
they  may  so  far  enlarge  their  sphere  of  thought  and  action 
as  to  be  able  to  say,  at  least  for  a  few  hours  every  day, 
'  We  are  free.' "  Yet  the  writer  of  this  fine  paragraph 
was  never  free  from  the  bondage  against  which  he  so  well 
inveighs.  Vanity  was  his  colossal  foible.  His  elation  at 
the  attentions  of  Frederick,  the  pomp  of  happiness  with 
which  he  proclaims  the  flattering  gift  and  letter  sent  him 
by  the  Russian  Empress  Catherine,  are  ludicrous.  And 
the  cleaving  agony  he  suffered  from  every  mark  of  oppo- 
sition or  undervaluation  tends  to  provoke  laughter  in  one 
class  of  spectators  as  much  as  pity  in  another.  If  the 
poetic  side  of  his  susceptibilities  challenges  admiration, 
their  personal  side  is  obnoxious  to  contempt.  When  he 
had  been  blamed  for  an  article  which  he  had  published  in 
some  medical  review,  he  says :  "  There  arose  against  me 
a  universal  shrieking-combination,  a  woman-epidemic." 
It  is  obvious  that  much  of  his  pain  originated  in  the  soje 
imagination  that  he  occupied  a  greater  space  in  the 
thoughts  of  others  than  he  really  did,  and  that  he  was 
less  favorably  judged  by  them  than  he  desired  to  be  and 
believed  he  deserved  to  be. 

Zimmermann  has  been  a  prominent  member  of  the 
Apostolate  of  Solitude.  He  experienced  it  so  thoroughly, 
meditated  on  it  so  patiently,  in  its  wretchedness  and  in 
its  happiness,  in  its  inspiring  influence  and  in  its  blighting 
influence ;  he  saw  the  truths  on  both  sides  of  the  subject 
so  sharply,  that,  on  the  whole,  he  has  handled  the  theme 
with  remarkable  fairness.  He  has  not  been  frightened 
by  the  appearance  of  inconsistency,  but  has  stated  the 
facts  of  the  case  in  its  opposite  aspects  with  energetic 
boldness.  Here  are  some  of  his  scattered  aphorisms  : 
"  In  the  crowd  we  are  impudent ;  in  the  closet,  modest." 
"  Genius  stagnates  in  solitude  :  where  merit  shines,  merit 
is  kindled."  "  Those  who  are  good  alone  should  not  be 
left  alone."  "  We  are  most  of  us,  even  in  our  maturest 
age,  infants :  we  cannot  go  alone."  "  Great  characters 
are  their  own  heralds,  though  they  have  thousands  to  an- 
nounce them." 


BLETHOVEN.  267 

A  few  hours  before  expiring,  Zimmermann  uttered  these 
words,  the  last  that  he  spoke  :  "  I  am  dying :  leave  me 
alone."  He  died.  They  left  him  alone  in  his  coffin,  un- 
derground, —  at  least,  seemed  to  leave  there  such  part  of 
him  as  may  be  left  in  any  material  enclosure  ;  for  the  pow- 
er of  God  reclaims  at  once  his  returning  child,  the  bosom 
of  Nature  soon  her  sundered  elements. 

Two  generations  had  passed,  when,  at  sunset,  after  a 
day  of  calm  beauty,  in  the  summer  of  eighteen  hundred 
and  sixty-five,  the  writer  of  this  sketch,  a  pilgrim  from 
America,  stood  in  the  burial-ground  of  the  quiet  and 
quaint  old  city  of  Hanover  beside  that  deserted  tomb. 
He  pondered  the  lessons  written  and  lived  for  the  benefit 
of  others  by  the  silent  slumberer  beneath  his  feet.  He 
meditated  on  the  different  forms  of  human  loneliness, 
their  causes,  their  accompaniments,  and  results.  His 
musing  ended  in  a  peaceful  thought,  which  blended  the 
memory  of  the  once  popular  author  with  the  loneliness 
of  death  and  oblivion,  and  with  a  fame  glimmering  swiftly 
over  the  nations  of  the  earth  to  subside  in  the  dark  silence 
of  the  grave.  Kneeling  then,  half-unconscious  of  what 
he  did,  he  wrote  with  traceless  finger  on  the  stone,  Here 
Zimmermann  drinks  his  fill  of  solitude  ! 


BEETHOVEN. 

THE  personality  and  life  of  Beethoven  were  profoundly 
lonesome.  His  immense  native  power  of  mind  and  sen- 
sibility, early  set  askew  with  the  world  of  men,  made  him 
peculiarly  sensitive  to  exactions,  slights,  and  irritations. 
The  death  or  the  fickleness  of  the  maiden  he  loved  in  his 
youth  apparently  made  a  dark  and  sinister  stamp  on  his 
social  character,  and  left  a  permanent  bitterness  in  his 
blood.  His  averseness  to  common  intercourse  was  aggra- 
vated by  his  poverty,  his  devouring  absorption  in  the  sci- 
ence and  art  of  music,  and  a  singular  combination  in  him 
of  av/kwardness  and  scorn,  tender  diffidence  and  titanic 
pride.  The  lack  of  popular  favor,  the  incompetent  con- 
demnation his  wonderful  compositions  long  suffered,  must 


268       SKETCHES  OF  LONELY  CHARACTERS. 

also  have  been  a  trial  tending  to  sour  him.  Furthermore, 
as  in  the  case  of  every  man  of  primal  genius,  his  tran- 
scendent originality  doomed  him  to  a  determined  struggle 
with  the  past,  an  uncompromising  insurrection  against 
conventional  authority  and  usage.  He  defied  the  pre- 
scriptions of  his  predecessors,  broke  pedantic  fetters,  re- 
futed his  teachers,  made  new  rules  for  himself,  upheaved 
a  world  dead  in  professional  routine  and  tradition  that  he 
might  inspire  it  with  fresh  freedom  and  fresh  triumphs  ; 
and  thus,  perforce,  he  stood  alone,  battling  with  obscurity, 
contempt,  and  hate,  until  he  slowly  conquered  the  recog- 
nition he  deserved.  Finally,  in  addition  to  these  previous 
causes,  the  sternness  of  his  isolation  was  made  complete 
by  the  dreadful  calamity  of  a  dense  and  incurable  deaf- 
ness. 

Dark  indeed  was  his  melancholy,  bitter  the  revulsion 
of  his  capacious  soul  upon  itself.  He  says,  "  I  was  nigh 
taking  my  life  with  my  own  hands.  But  Art  held  me 
back.  I  could  not  leave  the  world  until  I  had  revealed 
what  lay  within  me."  Resolved  at  any  cost  to  be  him- 
self, and  express  himself,  and  leave  the  record  to  pos- 
terity, he  left  behind  opponents  and  patrons  alike,  and 
consecrated  all  to  his  genius  and  its  ideal  objects.  Occu- 
pying for  a  long  time  a  room  in  a  remote  house  on  a  hill, 
he  was  called  the  Solitary  of  the  Mountain.  "  His  life 
was  that  of  a  martyr  of  the  old  legends  or  an  iron-bound 
hero  of  the  antique."  Poor,  deaf,  solitary,  restless,  proud, 
and  sad,  sometimes  almost  cursing  his  existence,  some- 
'imes  ineffably  glad  and  grateful,  subject  now  to  the  soft- 
est yearnings  of  melancholy  and  sympathy,  now  to  tern 
pestuous  outbreaks  of  wrath  and  woe,  shut  up  in  himself, 
he  lived  alone,  rambled  alone,  created  alone,  sorrowed 
and  aspired  and  enjoyed  alone. 

The  character  of  Beethoven  has  many  times  been 
wronged  by  uncharitable  misinterpretations.  He  has 
been  drawn  as  a  misanthrope,  a  selfish  savage.  His 
nature  had  attributes  as  glorious  as  the  music  born  out 
of  them.  He  was  a  democrat,  who  earnestly  desired  that 
the  rights  of  all  men  should  be  secured  to  them  in  the 
enjojment  of  freedom.  Asked,  in  a  law-suit  before  a 


BEETHOVEN.  269 

German  court,  to  produce  the  proof  of  his  nobility,  he 
pointed  to  his  head  and  his  heart,  and  said,  "  My  nobility 
is  here,  and  here."  He  was  a  fond  reader  of  Plato  and 
of  Plutarch.  One  of  his  biographers  says,  "  The  repub- 
lic of  Plato  was  transfused  into  his  flesh  and  blood."  He 
always  stood  by  his  republican  principles  stanchly.  It 
was  in  the  firm  belief  that  Napoleon  meant  to  republican- 
ize  France  that  he  composed  and  inscribed  to  him  his 
Heroic  Symphony.  On  learning  that  the  First  Consul 
had  usurped  the  rank  of  Emperor,  he  tore  off  the  dedi- 
cation and  threw  it  down  with  explosive  execrations. 
He  sympathized  intensely  with  that  whole  of  humanity 
which  to  a  genius  like  his  ever  reveals  itself  as  a  great 
mysterious  being,  distinct  from  individuals,  yet  giving  the 
individual  his  sacredness  and  grandeur.  His  uncertain 
and  furious  temper  was  an  accident  of  his  physical  con- 
dition, the  unequal  distribution  of  force  in  his  nervous 
centres.  He  once  suddenly  quitted  a  summer  retreat, 
where  he  was  supremely  happy,  because  his  host  per- 
sisted in  making  profound  bows  whenever  he  met  him 
in  his  walks.  Such  an  incident  makes  his  nervous  state 
clear  enough.  An  idea  which  to  a  man  of  stolid  health 
and  complacency  would  be  nothing,  entering  the  imagi- 
nation of  the  rich  and  febrile  Beethoven,  was  a  terrific 
stimulus.  To  judge  such  an  one  justly,  discriminating 
insight  and  charity  are  needed. 

In  his  lofty  loneliness  his  mislikers  considered  him  as 
"  a  growling  old  bear."  Those  who  appreciated  his  genius 
thought  of  him  as  the  mysterious  "  cloud-compeller  of  the 
world  of  music."  Nearly  all  regarded  him  as  an  incom- 
prehensible unique  into  whose  sympathetic  interior  it  was 
impossible  to  penetrate.  Carl  Maria  von  Weber  once  paid 
him  a  visit,  of  which  his  son,  Max  Weber,  has  given  a 
graphic  description  full  of  interesting  lights.  Himself  kept 
scrupulously  clean  by  an  oriental  frequency  of  bathing,  he 
sat  in  the  disorderly  desolate  room,  amidst  the  slovenly 
signs  of  poverty,  his  mass  of  lion-like  face  glowing  with 
the  halo  of  immortality,  his  head  crowned  with  a  wild 
forest  of  hair.  He  was  all  kindness  and  affection  to 
Weber,  "  embracing  him  again  and  again,  as  though  he 
could  not  part  with  him." 


270       SKETCHES  OF  LONELY  CHARACTERS. 

"When  he  produced  his  mighty  opera,  Fidelio,  it  failed. 
In  vain  he  again  modelled  and  remodelled  it.  He  went 
himself  into  the  orchestra  and  attempted  to  lead  it ;  and 
the  pitiless  public  of  Vienna  laughed.  To  think  now  of 
the  Austrian  groundlings  cackling  at  the  sublimesf  genius 
who  has  ever  lifted  his  sceptre  in  the  empire  of  sound, 
making  him  writhe  under  the  torturing  irony  of  so  mon- 
strous a  reversal  of  their  relative  superiorities !  After 
suffering  'his  cruel  outrage,  he  fled  more  deeply  than 
ever  into  his  cold  solitude.  As  Weber  says,  "  He  crept 
into  his  lair  alone,  like  a  wounded  beast  of  the  forest,  to 
hide  himself  from  humanity."  Nothing  can  be  sadder  in 
one  aspect,  grander  in  another,  than  the  expression  this 
unapproachable  creator,  this  deaf  Zeus  of  music,  has 
given  of  his  isolation.  "  I  have  no  friend ;  I  must  live 
with  myself  alone  ;  but  I  well  know  that  God  is  nearer 
to  me  than  to  my  brothers  in  the  art." 

Of  course  this  is  no  entire  picture  either  of  the  soul  or 
the  experience  of  Beethoven.  He  had  his  happy  pre- 
rogatives and  hours.  Life  to  him  too  was  often  sweet 
and  dear.  He  knew  the  joy  of  a  fame  which  before  he 
died  had  slowly  grown  to  be  stupendous.  Almost  every 
one  of  the  musical  celebrities  who  arose  in  his  time,  from 
fhe  author  of  Der  Freischiitz  to  the  author  of  Der  Erl- 
konig,  with  pilgrim  steps  brought  a  tributary  wreath  to 
him  as  the  greatest  master.  Above  all,  he  had  a  sublime 
consciousness  and  fruition  of  his  own  genius.  At  one 
time  he  says,  "  Music  is  like  wine,  inflaming  men  to  new 
achievements,  and  I  am  the  Bacchus  who  serves  it  out 
to  them."  At  another  time  he  says,  "Tell  Goethe  to 
hear  my  symphonies,  and  he  will  agree  with  me  that 
music  alone  ushers  man  within  the  portals  of  an  intellect- 
ual world  ready  to  encompass  him,  but  which  he  can 
never  encompass."  If  he  suffered  hunger,  loneliness, 
the  misunderstanding  of  the  vulgar  and  conventional,  he 
kept  himself  free,  and  felt  himself  supreme  in  his  sphere. 
An  anonymous  critic  has  well  written  of  him,  "  He  gained 
what  he  sought,  but  gained  it  with  that  strain  of  discord 
in  his  finer  nature  which  is  to  the  soul  of  the  artist  what 
the  shadow  of  a  cloud  is  to  a  landscape.  The  desire  to 


BEETHOVEN.  271 

make  the  world  different  from  what  it  was  in  kind  as  well 
as  degree  was  the  error  which  ruined  his  earthly  peace ; 
for  he  persisted  in  judging  all  relations  of  life  by  the  un- 
attainable ideals  which  drew  him  on  in  music.  Yet  it 
was  out  of  this  opposition  to  the  reality,  which  was  to 
him  a  sorrow  and  bitterness  known  to  but  few  beside, 
that  there  came  the  final  victory  of  his  later  creations." 
He  also  knew  that  his  strains  would  sound  his  name  and 
worth  down  the  vista  of  future  ages  with  growing  glory. 
"  I  have  no  fear  for  my  works.  No  harm  can  betide 
them.  Whoever  understands  them  shall  be  delivered 
from  the  burdens  that  afflict  mankind." 

But  despite  all  these  alleviations  Beethoven  was  pre- 
eminently a  lonely  nature.  He  was  extremely  fond  of 
taking  long  walks  by  himself  through  beautiful  scenery  — 
as  Petrarch,  Rousseau,  and  Zimmermann  were.  One  hardly 
knows  where  to  look  for  a  more  pathetic  outbreak  of  a 
loving  and  disappointed  heart  than  is  given  in  the  follow 
ing  expressions  in  the  will  he  left  for  his  two  brothers. 
The  thoughts  in  that  passage  of  his  Heroic  Symphony 
wherein,  as  he  said,  he  prophesied  the  melancholy  exile 
and  death  of  Napoleon,  are  not  charged  with  a  more 
penetrative  sadness  or  immense  grief  than  is  in  the  strain 
of  these  pleading,  parting  words  :  —  "  O  ye  who  consider 
me  hostile,  obstinate,  or  misanthropic,  what  injustice  ye 
do  me  !  Ye  know  not  the  secret  causes  of  what  to  you 
wears  this  appearance."  ".My  deafness  forces  me  to  live 
as  in  an  exile."  "  O  God !  who  lookest  down  on  my 
misery,  thou  knowest  that  it  is  accompanied  with  love  of 
my  fellow  creatures,  and  a  disposition  to  do  good.  O 
men  !  when  ye  shall  read  this,  think  that  ye  have  wronged 
me.  And  let  the  child  of  affliction  take  comfort  on  rind- 
ing one  like  himself,  who,  in  spite  of  all  obstacles,  did 
everything  in  his  power  to  gain  admittance  within  the 
rank  of  worthy  artists  and  men."  "  I  go  to  meet  death 
jvith  joy.  Farewell,  and  do  not  quite  forget  me  after  I 
am  dead." 


272  SKETCHES   OF   LONELY   CHARACTERS. 


SHELLEY. 

THE  cruel  injustice  with  which  Shelley  was  hunted,  m 
the  abused  names  of  morality  and  religion,  by  persons 
immeasurably  beneath  him  in  every  attribute  of  noble- 
ness, is  one  of  the  bitter  tragedies  of  our  century.  Few 
men  have  existed  so  brave,  thoughtful,  disinterested  and 
affectionate  as  he.  Hundreds  of  passages  in  his  poems, 
and  in  his  letters,  make  the  heart  of  the  sensitive  reader 
bleed.  He  writes  to  his  wife,  "  My  greatest  content 
would  be  utterly  to  desert  all  human  society.  I  would 
retire  with  you  and  our  child  to  a  solitary  island  in  the 
sea,  would  build  a  boat,  and  shut  upon  my  retreat  the 
flood-gates  of  the  world."  At  another  time  this  exquisite 
child  of  intellect  and  sensibility  says,  "  I  feel  myself  al- 
most irresistibly  impelled  to  seek  out  some  obscure  hid- 
ing-place, where  the  face  of  man  may  never  meet  me 
more."  The  sorrow  of  the  case  is  that  he  so  passionately 
loved  his  kind  all  the  while,  and  passionately  longed  for 
love  in  return.  He  made  a  transcript  from  his  own  heart 
when  he  wrote,  "  In  solitude,  or  in  that  deserted  state 
when  we  are  surrounded  by  human  beings,  and  yet  they 
sympathize  not  with  us,  we  love  the  flowers,  and  the 
grass,  and  the  waters,  and  the  sky."  The  poor  people  in 
Florence  who  saw  him  wandering  through  the  neighbor- 
hood and  in  the  galleries  there,  called  him  "  the  melan- 
choly Englishman." 

In  his  "Stanzas  written  in  dejection. near  Naples," 
occur  the  lines : 

I  sit  upon  the  sands  alone  ; 
The  lightning  of  the  noontide  ocean 

Is  flashing  round  me,  and  a  tone 
Arises  from  its  measured  motion, 
How  sweet  did  any  heart  now  share  in  my  emotion  I 

One  can  hardly  help  recognizing  in  the  following  pas- 
sage of  his  Julian  and  Maddolo,  a  description  partly 
copied  from  his  own  experience. 

There  are  some  by  nature  proud, 
Who,  patient  in  all  else,  demand  but  this,  — 


SHELLEY.  273 

To  love  and  be  beloved  with  gentleness ; 
And  being  scorned,  what  wonder  if  they  die 
Some  living  death  ? 

Shelley  comforted  himself  with  high  studies  and  works, 
with  the  deep  love  of  a  few  chosen  intimates,  with  doing 
good  to  every  poor  sufferer  who  came  within  his  reach, 
with  the  loftiest  ideal  philanthropy,  and  with  as  intense 
a  communion  with  nature  as  ever  blessed  the  soul  of 
a  poet.  But,  with  his  transcendent  capacities  of  imagin- 
ative feeling,  he  walked  ensphered  in  a  mystic  loneliness. 

His  words  are : 

I  love  all  waste 

And  solitary  places,  where  we  taste 
The  pleasure  of  believing  what  we  see 
Is  boundless,  as  we  wish  our  souls  to  be. 

During  his  stay  in  Rome,  himself  almost  as  lonely  as 
the  glorious  Titan  he  describes,  he  wrote  his  Prometheus 
Unbound.  He  composed  it,  in  his  own  language,  "on 
the  mountainous  ruins  of  the  baths  of  Caracalla,  among 
the  flowery  glades  and  thickets  of  odoriferous  blossoming 
trees  which  are  extended  in  ever-winding  labyrinths  upon 
its  immense  platforms  and  dizzy  arches  suspended  in  the 
air."  If  the  objects  of  nature  were  ever  made  the 
beloved  playmates  of  a  mortal,  that  mortal  was  Shelley. 
But  it  is  his  great  triumph,  his  profound  medicinal  lesson 
for  other  men,  that  extreme  as  was  his  suffering  from 
wrong  and  obloquy,  and  deep  as  were  his  resources  else- 
where, he  never  sank  to  misanthropy,  but  always  con- 
tinued to  love  and  always  sought  to  bless  those  who  hated 
and  strove  to  injure  him.  The  scornful  Landor,  after  an 
eloquent  eulogium  of  the  rare  virtues  of  Shelley,  adds, 
"  This  is  the  man  against  whom  such  clamors  have  been 
raised  by  bigots  and  cowards,  and  by  those  who  live  and 
lap  under  their  tables."  In  contrast  with  this  frank  and 
galling  contempt,  how  divine  is  the  strain  in  which  the 
outcast  poet  himself  addressed  his  persecutors  :  — 

Alas  !  good  friend,  what  profit  can  you  see 
In  hating  such  a  hateless  thing  as  me  ? 
There  is  no  sport  in  hate  where  all  the  rage 
Is  on  one  side.     In  vain  would  you  assuage 

12*  E 


274  SKETCHES   OF   LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

Your  frowns  upon  an  unresisting  smile, 

In  which  not  e'en  contempt  lurks  to  beguile 

Your  heart  by  some  faint  sympathy  of  hate. 

Of  all  the  expressions  of  the  mind  and  heart  of  Shel- 
ley, perhaps  the  most  wonderful  and  sustained  in  intensity 
of  richness  is  his  "  Alastor,  or  the  Spirit  of  Solitude."  In 
the  prose  preface  to  it  he  explains  its  purpose  to  depict 
a  poet  of  the  rarest  gifts,  who,  after  a  devoted  pursuit  of 
the  choicest  ends  of  life,  thirsts  for  the  sympathy  of  an 
intelligence  like  his  own,  and,  failing  to  find  it,  is  blasted 
by  the  disappointment,  and  droops  into  an  untimely 
grave.  It  is  an  allegory  of  the  loneliness  of  genius,  de- 
scribing how  "  the  pure  and  tender-hearted  perish  through 
the  intensity  and  passion  of  their  search  after  the  com- 
munities of  human  sympathy."  The  lesson  that  "  the 
self-centred  seclusion  of  genius  will  be  avenged  by  dark- 
ness, decay,  and  extinction,"  and  that  "  the  selfish,  blind, 
and  torpid  multitudes  constitute,  together  with  their  own, 
the  lasting  misery  and  loneliness  of  the  world,"  is  taught 
in  this  poem  with  vivid  power  by  one  who 

In  lone  and  silent  hours, 

When  night  makes  a  weird  sound  of  its  own  stillness, 
Like  an  inspired  and  desperate  alchemist, 
Staking  his  very  life  on  some  dark  hope, 
Had  mingled  awful  talk  and  asking  looks 
With  his  most  innocent  love  and  his  strong  tears, 

until,  conqueror  of  his  enemies  in  the  loving  conquest  of 
himself,  he  could  say, 

Serenely  now, 

And  moveless  as  a  long-forgotten  lyre 
Suspended  in  the  solitary  dome 
Of  some  mysterious  and  deserted  fane, 
I  wait  thy  breath,  Great  Parent,  that  my  strain 
May  modulate  with  murmurs  of  the  air, 
And  motions  of  the  forest  and  the  sea, 
And  voice  of  living  beings,  and  woven  hymns 
Of  night  and  day,  and  the  deep  heart  of  man. 

Few  men,  indeed,  have  either  loved  solitude  better  or 
had  keener  experience  of  wrong  at  the  hands  of  society 
than  Shelley.  Yet  he  knew  well,  and  well  teaches  others, 


SHELLEY.  275 

how  profound  is  the  need  of  a  loving  fellowship  with  his 
kind,  for  the  health,  force,  and  joy  of  every  man,  for  the 
highest  as  well  as  the  lowest.  He  says,  with  reference  to 
self-centred  seclusion,  "  The  power  which  strikes  the  lu- 
minaries of  the  world  with  sudden  extinction  by  awaken- 
ing them  to  too  exquisite  a  perception  of  its  influences, 
dooms  to  a  slow  and  poisonous  decay  the  meaner  spirits 
that  dare  to  abjure  its  dominion.  Their  destiny  is  more 
abject  and  inglorious,  as  their  delinquency  is  more  con- 
temptible and  pernicious.  They  who,  deluded  by  no 
generous  error,  instigated  by  no  sacred  thirst  of  doubtful 
knowledge,  duped  by  no  illustrious  superstition,  loving 
nothing  on  this  earth,  and  cherishing  no  hopes  beyond, 
yet  keep  aloof  from  sympathies  with  their  kind,  —  have 
their  appointed  curse.  They  are  morally  dead." 

The  magnificent  scorn  which  Shelley  felt  for  every 
form  of  meanness  or  cruelty  breathes  throughout  his 
works,  especially  in  the  burning  wrath  with  which,  in  his 
"  Adonais,"  he  blasts  the  author  of  the  brutal  attack  in 
the  Quarterly  on  Keats.  But  the  terrible  contempt  with 
which  he  swooped  down  on  the  "  miserable  calumnia- 
tors," the  "  nameless  worms,"  the  "  viperous  murderers," 
the  "  carrion-kites "  of  men,  was  only  a  passing  ideal 
anger,  never  a  chronic  hatred  or  personal  revengefulness. 
The  comparison  of  his  own  extraordinary  mind  with  the 
dwarfish  intellects  around  him,  the  perception  of  the  vast 
superiority  of  his  own  power  and  passions  to  those  of 
ordinary  men,  never,  as  it  did  in  the  case  of  Byron,  fed  a 
devouring  pride  in  him  ;  never  filled  him  with  disdain  for 
his  race  or  with  disgust  at  the  worthlessness  of  the  prizes 
of  life.  He  nobly  practised  the  precept  he  so  nobly 
arges  :  — 

There  is  one  road 

To  peace,  and  that  is  TRUTH,  which  follow  ye  ! 

LOVE  sometimes  leads  astray  to  misery. 

And  some  perverted  beings  think  to  find 

In  scorn  or  hate  a  medicine  for  the  mind 

Which  scorn  or  hate  hath  wounded.     O,  how  vain  ! 

The  dagger  heals  not,  but  may  rend  again. 

No  man  familiar  with  the  writings  of  Shelley,  who  has 
my  appreciation  of  the  scale  of  ranks  in  human  charac- 


276  SKETCHES   OF   LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

ter,  can  roam  in  the  haunts  wonted  to  his  feet ;  muse  on 
the  landscapes  his  eyes  loved  to  drink  ;  stand  in  the  halls 
where  he  dwelt ;  pause  on  the  beach  of  the  bay  where  the 
sea,  with  late  remorse,  gave  up  the  drooping  marble  of 
his  form ;  recall  the  scene  of  his  friends  restoring  his 
limbs  to  dust  in  fire  mixed  with  wine  and  frankincense  ; 
linger  in  votive  thought,  the  soul  of  the  dead  poet  trans- 
fusing the  conscious  soul  of  the  pilgrim,  before  the  grave 
in  Rome  holding  his  heart,  and  read  through  tears  that 
tenderest  of  all  inscriptions,  cor  cordium,  heart  of  hearts, 
without  emotions  of  pity,  reverence,  love,  and  wonder, 
which  \\orcls  can  hardly  convey. 

It  is  impossible  more  fitly  to  end  this  sketch  of  one 
who,  in  proportion  as  he  is  appreciated,  will  be  the  dar- 
ling of  gentle  and  generous  hearts,  than  by  quoting  the 
words  of  his  enthusiastic  friend,  Leigh  Hunt :  "  He  was 
like  a  spirit  that  had  darted  out  of  its  orb  and  found  it- 
self in  another  world.  I  used  to  tell  him  that  he  had 
come  from  the  planet  Mercury.  When  I  heard  of  the 
catastrophe  that  overtook  him,  it  seemed  as  if  this  spirit, 
not  sufficiently  constituted  like  the  rest  of  the  world  to 
obtain  their  sympathy,  yet  gifted  with  a  double  portion  of 
love  for  all  living  things,  had  been  found  dead  in  a  soli- 
tary corner  of  the  earth,  its  wings  stiffened,  its  warm  heart 
cold ;  the  relics  of  a  misunderstood  nature  slain  by  the 
ungenial  elements." 


COLERIDGE. 

THE  opinion  has  been  expressed  by  De  Quincey,  that 
the  intellect  of  Coleridge  was  "  the  subtilest  and  the  most 
spacious  that  has  yet  existed  among  men."  His  heart 
was  not  inferior  to  his  mind.  Yet  how  profoundly  lonely 
he  was  !  The  rich  fire  of  his  fancy  and  the  fatal  faintness 
of  his  will  made  the  world  a  dream  peopled  with  phan- 
toms. He  once  characterized  himself  as  "through  life 
chasing  chance-started  friendships."  Among  the  lines  he 
wrote  after  spending  a  night  in  the  house  once  occupied 
by  the  Man  of  Ross,  we  read  with  strong  emotion  the 
following  :  — 


WORDSWORTH.  277 

But  if,  like  mine,  through  life's  distressful  scene, 
Lonely  and  sad  thy  pilgrimage  hath  been, 
And  if,  thy  breast  with  heart-sick  anguish  fraught, 
Thou  journeyest  onward  tempest-tossed  in  thought, 
Here  cheat  thy  cares ;  in  generous  visions  melt, 
And  dream  of  goodness  thou  hast  never  felt. 

His  dear  friend  Charles  Lamb,  who  almost  idolized 
him,  said  "he  had  a  hunger  for  eternity."  No  doubt,  in 
the  immensity  of  his  spiritual  isolation  from  ordinary 
minds,  when  he  turned  back  from  baffled  efforts  after  a 
competent  communion,  he  often  felt 

So  lonely  't  was  that  God  himself 
Scarce  seemed  there  to  be. 

Aubrey  De  Vere,  in  the  fine  poem  he  wrote  after  the 
death  of  the  Seer  of  Highgate,  says  :  — 

And  mighty  voices  from  afar  came  to  him  ; 

Converse  of  trumpets  held  by  cloudy  forms, 

And  speech  of  choral  storms. 

Spirits  of  night  and  noontide  bent  to  woo  him. 

He  stood  the  while,  lonely  and  desolate 

As  Adam  when  he  ruled  a  world  yet  found  no  mate. 

Though  it  is  true  that  Coleridge  had  a  few  dear  friends, 
he  appeared  to  live  in  a  spell,  with  an  enchanted  barrier 
about  him.  His  existence  was  a  long  soliloquy  of  won- 
drous richness,  weirdly  remote  from  contact,  which  other 
men  seem  to  overhear  as  unseen  listeners. 

He  said  himself:  "Perhaps  never  man  whose  name 
has  been  so  often  in  print  for  praise  or  reprobation  had 
so  few  intimates  as  myself."  When  he  died  at  Highgate, 
after  a  residence  of  twenty  years,  a  biographer  says  "  he 
was  a  stranger  in  the  parish,  and  therefore  was  interred 
alone  ! " 

WORDSWORTH. 

SOLITUDE  is  to  different  persons  what  their  characters, 
habits,  and  aims  make  it.  To  one  and  another  it  is  vari- 
ously a  covert,  a  prison,  a  sanctuary,  a  studio,  a  forge,  a 
throne.  To  Wordsworth,  that  grand  and  peaceful  spirit, 


278  SKETCHES   OF    LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

patriarch  of  the  intimate  muse,  it  was  a  bower,  a  chamber, 
a  library,  and  a  temple,  —  his  place  of  joy,  rest,  work,  and 
worship.  Here  he  retreated  from  the  distressful  medley 
of  popular  whims,  from  the  deteriorating  strain  of  com- 
mon ambitions,  to  the  intrinsic  standards  of  truth  and 
good,  and  the  authoritative  companionship  of  greatness 
and  worth.  He  retreated  hither  not  to  brood  over  woes, 
indulge  disdain,  and  meditate  revenge ;  but  to  enjoy 
thought,  nature,  and  God,  and  impart  the  enjoyment  to 
mankind. 

Wordsworth  was  fitted  for  solitude  by  his  informing  and 
overpowering  ideality ;  by  his  brooding,  interior  tender- 
ness ;  by  his  heroic  originality,  self-respect,  and  independ- 
ence. His  impassioned  imagination  turned  things  to 
thoughts  and  thoughts  to  things,  and  frequently  made 
absorbing  emotions  suffice  in  place  of  sights  and  sounds, 
deeds  and  words.  He  said  himself  that  he  was  often  so 
rapt  into  the  world  of  ideas  that  the  external  world  seemed 
not  to  be,  and  he  had  to  reconvince  himself  of  its  exist- 
ence by  clasping  a  tree  or  some  other  object  that  happened 
to  be  near  him.  When  Sir  George  Beaumont  had  made 
him  a  munificent  gift,  and  he  had  for  many  weeks  neg- 
lected to  acknowledge  the  favor,  he  apologetically  says  : 
"  I  contented  myself  with  thinking  over  my  complacent 
feelings,  and  breathing  forth  solitary  gratulations  and 
thanksgivings,  which  I  did  in  many  a  sweet  and  many  a 
wild  place  during  my  late  tour."  The  winter  he  spent  at 
Goslar,  in  Germany,  he  walked  daily  on  the  ramparts  by 
a  pond.  "  Here,"  he  writes,  "  I  had  no  companion  but  a 
kingfisher,  a  beautiful  creature  that  used  to  glance  by  me. 
I  consequently  became  much  attached  to  it." 

He  was  too  occupied  and  grave  and  continuous,  too 
wealthily  sensitive  and  devoutly  dedicated,  for  that  flip- 
pant, fragmentary  jocosity,  that  free  and  easy  intercourse 
on  the  level  of  little  nothings,  in  which  average  natures 
take  pleasure.  His  microscopic  studies  of  himself  and 
his  states  ;  his  steadfast  sympathies  with  the  simplest  and 
poorest  objects  ;  his  telescopic  sweeps  of  the  sublimities 
of  nature,  history,  and  philosophy,  —  insulated  him  equal- 
ly from  the  vulgar  and  the  proud.  In  his  own  words,  — 


WORDSWORTH.  279 

lie  was  retired  as  noontide  dew, 

Or  fountain  in  a  noonday  grove  ; 
And  you  must  love  him,  ere  to  you 

He  would  seem  worthy  of  your  love. 

With  such  souls  as  his  sister  Dorothy,  Coleridge,  and 
Charles  Lamb,  he  maintained  a  glorious  community  of 
mind  and  heart  in  a  friendship  of  rare  beauty  ;  but  to 
the  multitude  he  was  uninteresting,  and  positively  repul- 
sive to  conventional  and  conceited  critics.  The  multi- 
tude neglected  him ;  the  critics  made  contemptuous  war 
on  him. 

This  was  on  account  of  the  peculiar  offence  of  his 
originality.  Dismounting  from  the  traditional  stilts  of 
poetry,  this  great  poet  and  true  man  sought  to  portray, 
in  the  simple  language  of  genuine  insight  and  passion, 
the  permanent  and  universal  elements  of  beauty,  dignity, 
and  joy  in  the  outward  works  of  God,  in  the  structure  of 
human  nature,  and  in  the  experience  of  human  life.  The 
inspiration  of  loveliness,  worth,  and  sublimity  had  hither- 
to been  chiefly  sought  in  the  most  imposing  outer  aspects 
of  life  and  nature  ;  in  kings,  courts,  conquerors,  philoso- 
phers ;  in  the  romantic,  the  ^exceptional.  He  sought  to 
unveil  it  in  the  commonest  places  and  forms  ;  to  show  the 
grandest  materials  of  wisdom,  poesy,  and  religion,  trag- 
edy and  happiness,  in  huts  and  laborers,  in  the  most 
ordinary  lot  and  landscape  of  man.  He  had  the  moral 
courage,  love,  and  perseverance  to  do  this,  and  genius  to 
succeed.  But,  until  he  had  educated  a  public  to  appre- 
ciate his  originality,  he  had  to  pay  the  penalty  of  his 
superiority  in  the  suffering  of  a  long  series  of  insults  and 
incompetent  scorn.  With  reference  to  his  "  Idiot  Boy," 
he  was  called  the  hero  of  his  own  story.  His  "  Peter 
Bell  "  was  saluted  with  a  chorus  of  jeers.  His  books 
were  little  read,  while  volumes  of  trash  had  a  large  circu- 
lation, and  were  praised  by  all  the  reviews.  Was  not 
here  enough  to  make  a  man  break  down  in  despair,  or 
recoil  into  misanthropy?  He  had  an  extraordinary  pas- 
sion for  fame,  knew  himself  worthy  of  it,  but  was  attacked 
and  despised  for  the  very  things  for  which  he-  ought  to 
have  been  admired  and  prized. 


280  SKETCHES   OF   LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

Without  despondency  or  hate,  he  fell  back  on  his  gifts 
and  call ;  turned  from  actual  men  to  ideal  man,  from  the 
irritating  society  of  fashion  and  emulation  to  the  pacify- 
ing society  of  the  landscape  and  the  Infinite  Spirit,  and 
determined  to  conquer  usefulness  and  renown  by  perfect 
ing  himself  and  improving  his  productions.  It  is  one  of 
the  noblest  examples  in  history,  —  the  example  of  "  pre 
ferring  to  any  other  object  of  regard  the  cultivation  and 
exertion  of  his  own  powers  in  the  highest  possible  de- 
gree." 

The  peculiar  experience  of  Wordsworth,  united  with  his 
peculiar  characteristics,  made  him  a  solitary,  but  not  a 
lonesome,  man.  He  enjoyed  a  happy  tranquillity  nursed 
by  meditative  sympathy  ;  whereas  many  a  one,  under  less 
trying  circumstances,  has  fallen  victim  to  an  irritable 
wretchedness  nursed  by  restless  antipathy.  He  was  con- 
tinually thinking  of  the  things  worthy  to  be  loved  and 
adored ;  they,  of  the  things  worthy  to  be  shunned  and 
loathed.  The  conditions  of  his  moral  victory  afford  an 
example  worthy  of  careful  study. 

In  the  first  place,  his  self-respect  and  self-confidence 
never  failed  him  ;  and  — 

Happy  is  he,  who,  caring  not  for  pope, 
Consul,  or  king,  can  sound  himself  to  know 
The  destiny  of  man,  and  live  in  hope. 

He  certainly  had  dipped  his  pen  in  his  deepest  blood 
when  he  wrote,  — 

Creative  art 

Demands  the  service  of  a  mind  and  heart 
Heroically  fashioned  to  infuse 
Faith  in  the  whispers  of  the  lonely  Muse, 
While  the  whole  world  seems  adverse  to  desert. 

He  did  not  need  to  be  "  nourished  with  the  sickly  food 
of  popular  applause."  Perceiving  that  men  praise  us 
only  as  they  recognize  in  us  some  counterpart  of  what 
they  are  or  wish  to  be,  he  saw  that  often  there  is  no  surer 
test  of  merit  than  obloquy.  Taught  to  feel  (perhaps  too 
much)  the  self-sufficing  power  of  solitude,  invulnerable  to 
the  sleet  of  hisses  and  arrows,  knowing  himself  divinely 
called  to  his  work,  assured  that  his  place  was  with  the  great 


WORDSWORTH.  281 

and  good  of  all  ages,  he  wrote  to  Southey,  "  Let  the  age 
continue  to  love  its  own  darkness ;  I  shall  continue  to 
write,  with,  I  trust,  the  light  of  heaven  upon  me";  and 
to  Bernard  Barton,  with  reference  to  a  bitter  critique  on 
him,  "  I  doubt  not  but  that  it  is  a  splenetic  effusion  of 
the  conductor  of  that  Review,  who  has  taken  a  perpetual 
retainer  from  his  own  incapacity  to  plead  against  my 
claims  to  public  approbation."  Again,  he  writes  to  Lady 
Beaumont,  that,  knowing  the  absolute  ignorance  in  which 
worldlings  of  every  rank  and  situation  must  be  wrapt  as 
to  the  feelings,  thoughts,  and  images  on  which  the  life 
of  his  poems  depended,  the  envy  and  malevolence  which 
stand  in  the  way  of  a  work  of  any  merit  from  a  living  poet, 
he  had  only  the  lowest  expectations  concerning  the  imme- 
diate effect  of  his  writings  on  the  public.  But,  he  adds, 
as  to  the  assaults  of  the  critics,  "  My  ears  are  stone-deaf 
to  this  idle  buzz,  and  my  flesh  as  insensible  as  iron  to 
these  petty  stings.  I  have  an  invincible  confidence  that 
my  poems  will  co-operate  with  the  benign  tendencies  in 
human  nature  and  society  wherever  found  ;  and  that  they 
will,  in  their  degree,  be  efficacious  in  making  men  wiser, 
better,  and  happier." 

His  joy  in  nature  was  as  great  as  in  his  vocation. 
However  isolated,  he  never  felt  lonesome,  as  his  person- 
ality rather  blended  with  objects  that  stood  relieved 
against  them. 

They  flashed  upon  that  inward  eye 
Which  is  the  bliss  of  solitude, 

and  were  either  taken  up  with  imaginative  enrichment 
and  transfusion  into  himself,  or  himself  blent  and  lost  in 
them.  Many  a  time  and  oft  he  sat  amidst  his  own 
thoughts,  and  amidst  the  scenes  of  nature,  in  such  en- 
trancement  that  "  even  the  motion  of  an  angel's  wing 
would  have  interrupted  the  intense  tranquillity."  In  the 
silent  faces  of  things  he  could  read  unutterable  love. 

Sound  needed  none, 
Nor  any  voice  of  joy  ;  his  spirit  drank 
The  spectacle  ;  sensation,  soul,  and  form 
All  melted  into  him  ;  they  swallowed  up 


«82  SKETCHES   OB    LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

His  animal  being  :  in  them  did  he  live, 
And  by  them  did  he  live  :  they  were  his  life. 

No  wonder  he  was  fond  of  solitude  ;  and,  though  he 
"wandered  lonely  as  a  cloud  that  floats  on  high  over 
vales  and  hills,"  he  could  not  be  lonesome.  In  the  heart 
of  the  mist ;  on  the  bare  moor,  or  the  top  of  the  moun 
tain,  or  under  the  cope  of  midnight ;  in  the  haunt  of  the 
heron,  by  the  shy  river  ;  or  the  remoter  nook,  where  the 
pelican  sits  on  the  cypress  spire  and  suns  himself,  —  he 
was  at  home,  with  things  in  which  he  joyed,  and  which 
seemed  to  love  him.  He  says  well,  — 

I  learned  betimes  to  stand  unpropped  : 
And  independent  musings  pleased  me  so 
That  spells  seemed  on  me  when  I  was  alone  : 
Yet  could  I  only  cleave  to  solitude 
In  lonely  places  ;  if  a  throng  was  near, 
That  way  I  leaned  by  nature. 

Thirdly,  his  reverential  and  joyous  communion  with 
himself,  and  his  reverential  and  joyous  communion  with 
nature,  keeping  him  pure  in  heart,  content  with  modest 
pleasures,  removed  from  little  enmities  and  low  desires 
and  every  malignant  passion,  enabled  him  also  to  main- 
tain a  reverential  and  joyous  communion  with  man.  He 
gave  no  harbor  to  suspicions  and  envies,  but  wholesome- 
ly threw  them  off. 

He  kept, 

In  solitude  and  solitary  thought, 
His  mind  in  a  just  equipoise  of  love. 

When  he  thought  of  the  cruelties  and  miseries  of  men,  it 
was  to  pity  and  try  to  cure  them.  When  he  thought  of 
the  oppressions  and  degradations  of  men,  it  was  not 
weakly  to  despond,  or  to  give  way  to  hate  or  scorn  ;  but, 
with  generous  indignation,  to  denounce  them,  and  aspire 
to  liberty  and  nobleness  for  all,  with  a  firm  reliance  on 
the  great  laws  and  principles  tending  to  realize  the  pre- 
destined order  of  the  Creator.  He  contemplated  pre- 
vailingly the  diviner  qualities  and  sublime  connections  of 
human  nature,  the  glorious  facts  and  hopes  of  human  life, 
until  he  recognized  — 


WORDSWORTH.  283 

A  grandeur  in  the  beatings  of  the  heart 
He  saw  man  in  his  own  domain  of  the  earth,  — 

As  a  lord  or  genius,  under  God, 
Presiding  ;  and  severest  solitude 
Had  more  commanding  looks  when  he  was  there. 

Man  rose  on  his  sight,  set  in  the  most  beautiful  and  im- 
posing scenery  of  the  world,  encompassed  with  august 
powers  of  virtue  and  bliss  and  tragic  troops  of  woe.  The 
imagination  and  passion  which  many  embittered  geniuses 
have  used  to  darken  and  degrade  the  image  of  man, 
Wordsworth  employed  to  depict  him  in  dazzling  lights, 
endowed  with  godlike  attributes,  not  as  a  mere  dusty 
brother  of  the  worm,  but  as  a  being  first  in  every  capa- 
bility of  wisdom,  goodness,  and  rapture,  through  the  di- 
vine effect  of  truth  and  love.  Thus,  when  he  left  his 
lonely  mountains,  and,  in  the  tribes  and  fellowships  of 
men,  was  begirt  by  shapes  of  vice  and  folly,  bustling 
greeds  of  manners,  objects  of  sport,  ridicule  and  scorn  ; 
when  he  "  heard  humanity  in  fields  and  groves  pipe  soli- 
tary anguish,  or  hung  brooding  above  the  fierce  storm  of 
sorrow,  barricaded  evermore  within  the  walls  of  cities," 
—  he  was  not  downcast  or  forlorn.  He  turned  to  the 
true  ideal  man,  ennobled  by  associated  connection  with 
nature  and  the  presence  of  God,  with  past  and  future, 
with  history,  science,  and  philosophy.  There  he  found 
unfailing  comfort  and  inspiration. 

But,  besides  the  happiness  Wordsworth  had  in  his  un- 
disturbed self-respect,  in  the  forms  and  motions  of  nature, 
and  in  his  ardent  sympathy  with  the  human  race,  he  knew 
a  rarer  and  perhaps  keener  happiness  in  the  profound 
presentiment  of  his  own  benignant  and  illustrious  fame 
in  the  future.  How  well  he  knew  his  own  place ! 

If  thou  indeed  derive  thy  light  from  heaven, 
Then,  in  the  measure  of  that  heaveu-born  light, 
Shine,  poet  !  in  thy  place,  and  be  content 

Since  his  estimate  was  the  simple  truth,  and  not  unac- 
companied with  devout  humility,  it  is  a  shame  to  call  it 
egotism.  Hundreds  of  the  best  men  and  women  of  the 


284  SKETCHES   OF    LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

generation  succeeding,  and  still  more  of  generations  yet 
to  come,  will  echo  the  truth  of  his  anticipations.  "  Of 
what  moment  is  the  present  reception  of  these  poems," 
he  wrote  to  Lady  Beaumont,  "compared  with  what  I 
trust  is  their  destiny  ?  To  console  the  afflicted  ;  to  add 
sunshine  to  daylight,  by  making  the  happy  happier  ;  to 
teach  the  young  and  the  gracious  of  every  age  to  see,  to 
think,  and  feel,  and  therefore  to  be  more  actively  and 
securely  virtuous,  —  this  is  their  office,  which  I  trust  they 
will  faithfully  perform  long  after  we  are  mouldered  in  our 
graves."  Not  many  men  have  ever  been  better  entitled 
to  feel  and  to  say,  — 

There  is 

One  great  society  alone  on  earth,  — 
The  noble  living  and  the  noble  dead. 

Lastly,  the  happiness  of  Wordsworth  in  all  his  solitudes 
was  completed  by  his  unaffected  communion  with  God, 
—  not  the  dead  God  of  tradition,  not  the  abstract  God 
of  verbal  formulas ;  but  the  living  God,  who  is  the  Lord 
of  all  that  is.  By  purity,  holiness,  humility,  waiting  sym- 
pathy, his  rnind  became  a  conscious  temple  for  "  the 
Prophetic  Spirit  that  inspires  the  human  soul  of  univer- 
sal earth  dreaming  on  things  to  come."  He  became 
wonderfully  aware  of  the  significance  of  those  awful  in- 
cumbencies under  which  human  thoughts  creep;  and 
recognized  them  as 

Visitings 

Of  the  Upholder  of  the  tranquil  soul, 

That  tolerates  the  indignities  of  Time, 

And,  from  the  centre  of  Eternity 

All  finite  motions  overruling,  lives 

In  glory  immutable. 

No  man,  without  the  utmost  sincerity  and  intensity  of 
unborrowed  religious  experience,  could  have  written  pas- 
sages that  abound  in  the  poems  of  Wordsworth,  particu- 
larly in  his  "Excursion,"  "Tintern  Abbey,"  and  "Ode 
on  the  Intimations  of  Immortality." 

In  such  access  of  mind,  in  such  high  hour         .     . 

Of  visitation  from  the  living  God, 

Thought  was  not ;  in  enjoyment  it  expired. 

No  thanks  he  breathed,  he  proffered  no  request ; 


WORDSWORTH.  285 

Rapt  into  still  communion  that  transcends 
The  imperfect  offices  of  prayer  and  praise, 
His  mind  was  a  thanksgiving  to  the  Power 
That  made  him. 

This  religious  originality  ranks  him  among  the  inspiring 
prophets  of  the  race.  To  know  this,  must,  amidst  the 
abuse  and  the  neglect  he  suffered,  have  administered  ex- 
alted consolation  to  him.  "It  shall  be  my  pride,"  he 
says,  — 

That  I  have  dared  to  tread  this  holy  ground, 
Speaking  no  dream,  but  things  oracular. 

This  I  speak, 

In  gratitude  to  God,  who  feeds  cur  heart 
For  his  own  service  ;  knoweth,  loveth  us, 
When  we  are  unregarded  by  the  world. 

In  Wordsworth,  the  transitions  of  consciousness  were 
ever  from  the  insignificant  to  the  august,  from  the  ugly 
to  the  fair,  from  individuals  to  humanity,  from  the  tran- 
sient and  exceptional  to  the  permanent  and  universal, 
from  the  finite  creation  to  the  Infinite  Spirit.  Thus  he 
avoided  the  rasping  shocks  of  disappointment,  neutral- 
ized exasperating  vexations,  healed  grief  and  despon- 
dency, rested  serenely  on  sublime  supports  of  peace  and 
happiness.  In  this  manner,  he  so  informed  his  mind  with 
quietness  and  beauty,  so  fed  it 

With  lofty  thoughts,  that  neither  evil  tongues, 
Rash  judgments,  nor  the  sneers  of  selfish  men, 
Nor  greetings  where  no  kindness  is,  nor  all 
The  dreary  intercourse  of  daily  life, 
Could  e'er  prevail  against  him,  or  disturb 
His  cheerful  faith,  that  all  which  we  behold 
Is  full  of  blessings. 

Who  was  ever  better  rewarded  than  Wordsworth  in  the 
realization  of  what,  in  one  of  his  earliest  poems,  he  had 
distinctly  seen  and  coveted  as  the  highest  earthly  prize  ? 

A  mind,  that,  in  a  calm,  angelic  mood 
Of  happy  wisdom,  meditating  good, 
Beholds,  of  all  from  her  high  powers  required, 
Much  done,  and  much  designed,  and  more  desired,  — • 
Harmonious  thoughts,  a  soul  by  truth  refined, 
Entire  affection  for  all  human  kind. 


286       SKETCHES  OF  LONELY  CHARACTERS. 

It  is  a  beautiful  thing,  too,  to  know,  that,  before  he  died, 
the  meeds  he  had  so  grandly  earned  were  poured  at  his 
feet  in  lavish  tributes  from  abroad,  not  alone  in  the  silent 
honor  and  love  of  the  best  minds  in  the  world,  but  also 
when  old  Oxford  twined  her  lofty  laurel  round  his  head, 
while  her  children  made  her  arches  shake  above  their 
shouted  welcome  ;  and,  still  more,  when  the  wronged  and 
glorious  Shelley  said  to  him,  — 

Thou  \vert  as  a  lone  star  whose  light  did  shine 
On  some  frail  bark  in  winter's  midnight  roar ; 
Thou  hast  like  to  a  rock-built  refuge  stood 
Above  the  blind  and  battling  multitude. 

Wordsworth  is  still  more  a  teacher  than  a  poet,  —  one  of 
the  very  deepest  and  soundest  moral  teachers  of  the 
world.  His  muse,  indeed,  often  reminds  us  rather  of 
Academus  than  of  Parnassus.  But  more  than  is  lost  in 
art  and  beauty  is  gained  in  guidance  and  edification. 
He  incarnates  for  us  the  endless  lesson  that  to  promote 
and  fortify  the  general  welfare  of  our  own  being  is  the 
paramount  end,  —  a  fact  which  almost  all  forget  in  a  dis- 
tracted pursuit  of  externalities.  He  would  call  us  home 
into  the  possession  of  ourselves,  not  for  any  egotistic 
pampering,  but  in  order  that  we  may  lose  ourselves  in 
fruition  and  worship  of  the  whole.  "  We  live  too  little 
within,"  sighs  poor  Maurice  de  Guerin.  "  What  has  be- 
come of  that  inner  eye  which  God  has  given  us  to  keep 
watch  over  the  soul,  to  be  the  witness  of  the  mysterious 
play  of  thought,  the  ineffable  movement  of  life,  in  the 
tabernacle  of  humanity?  It  is  shut;  it  sleeps." 

The  special  value  of  Wordsworth  is  as  an  exemplify- 
ing teacher  and  contagious  imparter  of  certain  habits  of 
thought  and  feeling.  He  is  an  original  apostle  of  the 
enthusiasm  of  nature,  the  enthusiasm  of  principles,  and 
the  enthusiasm  of  humanity.  There  is  a  deep  and  vital 
philosophy  in  his  creed,  — 

To  her  fair  works  did  Nature  link 
The  human  soul  that  through  me  ran ; 

as  life  itself  is  primarily  "  an  adjustment  of  inner  rela- 
tions w'th  outer  relations,"  a  moving  reflection  within  us 


WORDSWORTH.  287 

of  something  originally  without  us.  He  has  in  this  direc- 
tion given  an  invaluable  new  impulse  both  to  literature  and 
to  direct  experience.  He  teaches  us  to  recognize  human- 
ity not  as  the  mere  sum  of  existing  men,  but,  in  addition 
to  this,  as  a  spirit  diffused  through  time  and  space  over 
the  whole  world  from  its  beginning  to  its  end,  enriched 
with  all  history  and  all  hope,  —  a  conception  under  whose 
influence  our  entire  existence  becomes  thronged  with  in- 
spiring impregnations  of  reflection  and  sentiment.  Who 
truly  receives  this  instruction  will  learn 

To  prize  the  breath  we  share  with  human  kind, 
And  look  upon  the  dust  of  man  with  awe. 

He  teaches  us  that 

By  love  subsists 

All  lasting  grandeur,  by  pervading  love ; 
That  gone,  we  are  as  dust 

He  would  make  us 

Know  that  pride, 

Howe'er  disguised  in  its  own  majesty, 
Is  littleness  ;  that  he  who  feels  contempt 
For  any  living  thing  hath  faculties 
Which  he  has  never  used. 

With  unwearied  earnestness  of  conjoined  example  and 
precept,  he  illustrates  how  — 

Unelbowed  by  such  objects  as  oppress 

Our  active  powers,  those  powers  themselves  become 

Strong  to  subvert  our  noxious  qualities  ; 

They  sweep  distemper  from  the  busy  day, 

And  make  the  big,  round  chalice  of  the  year 

Run  o'er  with  gladness. 

He  leads  us  to  be 

Studious  more  to  see 
Great  truths  than  touch  and  handle  little  ones. 

He  teaches  us  pre-eminently  the  lesson  which  alienated 
moroseness  so  constantly  inverts  :  — 

To  enfeebled  power, 

From  clear  communion  with  uninjured  minds 
\Vhat  renovation  may  be  brought,  and  what 
Degree  of  healing  to  a  wounded  spirit, 


288  SKETCHES   OF   LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

Dejected,  and  habitually  disposed 
To  seek  in  degradation  of  her  kind 
Excuse  and  solace  for  her  own  defects. 

He  exemplifies  in  all  his  life,  and  in  all  his  works,  the 
habit  of  seeing  the  great  in  the  small,  the  sublime  in  the 
vulgar,  the  strange  in  the  common,  the  awful  authority  and 
charm  of  humanity  in  the  poorest  and  most  ignorant  men, 
and  God  everywhere,  —  a  habit  invaluable  alike  for  wis- 
dom, for  virtue,  for  dignity,  for  peace,  and  for  happiness. 
Fortunate  every  one  who  learns  the  secret ! 

He  teaches  us,  finally,  the  restorative  efficacy  and  charm 
of  solitude,  like  a  prophet  familiar  with  all  her  secrets. 
To  turn  from  a  Heine  to  a  Wordsworth  is  like  changing 
attention  from  the  roar  and  blaze  of  brothels,  groggeries, 
and  hells,  to  a  nightingale  warbling  on  a  moonlit  bough 
in  heaven.  What  a  strain  he  pours  on  the  ears  of  the 
fops,  loungers,  gladiators,  and  slaves  of  time  !  — 

When  from  our  better  selves  we  have  too  long 
Been  parted  by  the  hurrying  world,  and  droop, 
Sick  of  its  business,  of  its  pleasures  tired, 
How  gracious,  how  benign,  is  solitude  ! 
How  potent  a  mere  image  of  her  sway  ! 
Most  potent  when  impressed  upon  the  mind 
With  an  appropriate  human  centre,  — a  hermit, 
Deep  in  the  bosom  of  the  wilderness  ; 
Votary,  in  vast  cathedral,  where  no  foot 
Is  treading,  where  no  other  face  is  seen, 
Kneeling  at  prayers  ;  or  watchman  on  the  top 
Of  lighthouse  beaten  by  Atlantic  waves  ; 
Or  as  the  soul  of  that  great  Power  is  met 
Sometimes  embodied  on  a  public  road, 
When,  for  the  night  deserted,  it  assumes 
A  character  of  quiet  more  profound 
Than  pathless  wastes. 

The  immortal  fame  of  Wordsworth  is  secure  with  the  im 
mortal,  benefits  he  will  render  his  docile  readers.  While 
Winander,  Fairfield,  and  Rydal  remain,  to  all  visionary 
minds  his  wraith  will  haunt  them  •  and  as  long  as  Der« 
went  runs,  it  will  murmur  his  name  to  the  pilgrims  on  its 
banks.  Men  will  have  a  more  blessed  and  mysterious 
communion  with  nature,  a  more  constant  and  pervading 
sense  of  the  presence  of  God,  a  more  firm  and  tender 


BYRON.  289 

love  of  their  fellow-beings,  because  he  has  lived  and  sung. 
Fitly  does  Lowell  say,  referring  to  him  :  "  Parnassus  has 
two  peaks  :  the  one  where  improvising  poets  cluster ; 
the  other,  where  the  singer  of  deep  secrets  sits  alone,  — 
a  peak  veiled  sometimes  from  the  whole  morning  of  a 
generation  by  earth-born  mists  and  smoke  of  kitchen 
fires,  only  to  glow  the  more  consciously  at  sunset,  and 
after  nightfall  to  crown  itself  with  imperishable  stars." 


BYRON. 

ANY  list  of  the  great  solitary  spirits  of  the  world,  not 
to  be  strikingly  defective,  must  contain  the  name  of  Byron. 
He  has  written  the  best  lines  in  the  English  language  on 
the  subject  of  solitude.  His  personality,  full  of  fascinating 
interest,  stands  in  relief  from  the  mass  of  men.  His  ex- 
perience furnishes  instructive  illustration  of  many  of  the 
conditions  and  consequences  of  spiritual  isolation.  We 
may  in  his  example  trace  the  dark  secrets  of  .unhappiness 
more  clearly  than  almost  anywhere  else. 

Byron  was  marked  out  from  average  humanity  from  his 
very  birth.  He  inherited  from  both  parents  a  "  blood  all 
meridian,"  on  one  side  rich  with  voluptuous  sensibility,  on 
the  other  side  tingling  with  vehement  irritability.  He  had 
a  dark,  tempestuous  passionateness  of  temperament,  com- 
bining in  the  most  singular  manner  a  remarkably  keen 
and  abiding  sense  of  himself  with  a  remarkable  freedom 
from  the  meannesses  of  selfishness,  and  an  unusual  sus- 
ceptibility to  noble  thoughts  and  sentiments.  The  deceit- 
fulness,  fickleness,  coldness,  meanness  which  his  sharp 
intelligence,  aggravated  by  his  morbid  consciousness, 
taught  him  to  trace  in  the  characters  and  deeds  of  most 
of  his  associates,  —  the  great  disparity  between  what  he 
craved  and  what  he  found,  —  very  early  gave  a  stronger 
warp  and  an  intenser  tinge  to  his  natural  bias  towards  lone- 
liness and  a  melancholy  brooding  over  his  own  thoughts. 

The  brain  of  Byron,  physiologically  considered,  was  a 
wonderful  organ.  It  was  at  once  uncommonly  powerful 
and  uncommonly  small.  What  fineness  and  firmness  of 
13  s 


290  SKETCHES   OF   LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

fibre,  what  compactness  and  vigor  of  cells,  what  profuse 
ness  of  polarity  it  must  have  had !  And  in  addition  to 
the  original  concentrated  strength  of  his  highly  charged 
nervous  structure,  everything  in  his  circumstances  and  life 
contributed  to  heighten  his  genius  by  intensifying  his 
mental  polarities  and  disturbing  their  equilibrium.  One 
distinguishing  element  in  his  self-consciousness  was  his 
rank.  He  was  heir  to  a  title  giving  him  prominence 
among  his  fellows,  yet  without  the  better  accompaniments 
of  respectful  deference  and  tenderness  which  should  at- 
tend such  a  birth.  His  intellectual  pride  kept  him  from 
obtruding  his  titular  supremacy.  His  generous  democratic 
impulses  and  his  contempt  for  the  illustrious  mediocrities 
of  the  peerage  and  the  throne,  made  him  disdainful  of 
inherited  insignia;  yet  in  him  the  feeling  of  the  peer  ever 
lay  underneath  the  feeling  of  the  poet  and  fast  by  the 
feeling  of  the  man.  The  poverty  and  neglect  which 
shrouded  his  childhood  lent  a  new  acuteness  to  his  feel- 
ing of  his  social  and  personal  claims.  His  sufferings 
when  first  sent  from  home  to  school,  — poor,  proud,  shy, 
affectionate,  unknown,  unfriended,  unnoticed  in  the  herd  of 
boys,  —  were  pitiable.  When  by  the  death  of  a  relative  he 
succeeded  to  his  ancestral  honors,  as  the  master  called  his 
name  in  school,  for  the  first  time  with  the  prefix  of  lord, 
he  burst  into  tears  in  the  midst  of  his  staring  mates.  A 
dark  slough  of  mortified  pride,  created  by  his  young 
school  experience  at  Harrow,  hung  over  his  mind  for 
years.  There  is  a  tomb  in  the  churchyard  at  Harrow, 
commanding  a  view  over  Windsor,  which  was  such  a  fa- 
vorite resting-place  with  him  that  the  boys  called  it  Byron's 
tomb.  Here  he  would  sit  for  hours  wrapt  in  thought, 
"  brooding  lonelily  over  the  first  stirrings  of  passion  and 
genius  in  his  soul,  perhaps  indulging  in  those  forethoughts 
of  fame,  under  the  influence  of  which,  when  little  more 
than  fifteen  years  of  age,  he  wrote  "  :  — 

My  epitaph  shall  be  my  name  alone : 
If  that  with  honor  fail  to  crown  my  clay, 
O  may  no  other  fame  my  deeds  repay  ! 
That,  only  that,  shall  single  out  the  spot, 
By  that  remembered  or  with  that  forgot. 


BYRON.  291 

Anothei  heiglitener  of  self-consciousness  in  Byron  was 
his  superb  personal  beauty.  The  romantic  charm  of  his 
noble  features,  with  the  mystery  of  his  genius,  drew  all 
eyes  on  him  wherever  he  went,  as  soon  as  he  had  become 
known,  and  secured  for  him  that  flattery  of  attention  and 
curiosity  which  cannot  fail  to  react  on  its  object.  That 
he  was  fully  conscious  of  this,  and  that  it  wrought  on  him 
with  a  keen  force,  is  obvious  from  many  particulars ; 
among  others  from  the  pains  he  took  with  his  toilet, 
shaving  the  hair  off  his  temples,  setting  the  fashion  of  the 
turned-down  collar.  This  over-consciousness  of  himself 
was  raised  to  a  painful  pitch  by  the  slight  malformation 
and  lameness  of  one  of  his  feet.  "  The  embittering  cir- 
cumstance of  his  life,"  Moore  says,  "  which  haunted  him 
like  a  curse,  and,  as  he  persuaded  himself,  counterbal- 
anced all  the  blessings  showered  on  him,  was  the  trifling 
deformity  of  his  foot."  He  once  said  mournfully  to  his 
friend  Becher,  who  was  trying  to  cheer  him  by  the  assur- 
ance of  his  great  gifts,  "  Ah,  my  dear  friend,  if  this  (lay- 
ing his  hand  on  his  forehead)  places  me  above  the  rest 
of  mankind,  that  (pointing  to  his  foot)  places  me  far,  far 
below  them."  He  said  the  "  horror  and  humiliation  " 
which  came  over  him  once  in  childhood,  when  his  mother 
called  him  "  a  lame  brat "  were  unutterable.  He  also 
once,  on  overhearing  Mary  Chaworth,  of  whom  he  was 
desperately  enamored,  say  to  a  female  friend,  "  Do  you 
suppose  I  could  love  that  lame  boy  ? "  darted  out  of  the 
house  in  a  state  of  frenzy,  and  fled  into  the  solitude  of 
the  forest,  where  he  stayed  until  late  in  the  night. 

The  boyish  sensibility  of  Byron  was  strangely  empas- 
sioned,  easily  piqued,  resentfully  retentive  of  wrongs, 
slights,  and  pains.  When  his  favorite  schoolmate,  young 
Lord  Clare,  expressed  regret  at  the  departure,  of  another 
friend,  Byron  was  tortured  with  jealousy.  It  affords  the 
skilled  psychologist  a  deep  glimpse  into  the  secrets  of  his 
bosom  to  know  that  he  was  bashful  even  to  the  end  of 
his  life,  and  had  the  habit  of  blushing.  When  staying  in 
his  boyhood  at  Mrs.  Pigot's,  if  he  saw  strangers  approach- 
ing the  house,  he  would  leap  out  of  the  window  to  avoid 
meeting  them.  The  same  trait  is  ascribed  to  himself  by 


2Q2       SKETCHES  OF  LONELY  CHARACTERS. 

Rousseau,  with  whom  Byron  had  much  in  common,  in 
spite  of  his  elaborate  disclaimer  of  the  asserted  likeness. 
It  is  also  recorded  of  Virgil  that  his  diffidence  often 
caused  him  to  beat  a  sudden  retreat  into  shops,  to  escape 
the  gaze  of  those  who  met  him  in  the  streets  of  Rome. 
Such  a  union  of  qualities  always  makes  its  possessor  fond 
of  seclusion,  and  gives  him  at  least  a  superficial  twist  of 
misanthropy.  The  youngest  muse  of  Byron  sang  to  one 
of  his  earliest  friends  :  — 

Dear  Becher,  you  tell  me  to  mix  with  mankind  : 
I  cannot  deny  such  a  precept  is  wise  : 
But  retirement  accords  with  the  tone  of  my  mind, 
And  I  will  not  descend  to  a  world  I  despise. 

It  is  affecting  to  see  how  soon  a  half  sad,  half  angry 
soreness  towards  the  world  mingled  with  his  strong  and 
haughty  boldness  of  self-assertion.  On  the  death  of  his 
mother,  nearly  at  the  same  time  with  that  of  his  two 
friends,  Matthews  and  Wingfield,  he  wrote  to  Hodgson, 
"  I  am  solitary,  and  I  never  felt  solitude  irksome  before." 

During  his  first  journey  in  Greece,  he  said,  his  chief 
delight  was  to  climb  to  some  high  rock  above  the  sea, 
and  remain  there  for  hours,  gazing  on  the  sky  and  waters, 
lost  in  reverie.  There  are  immortal  passages  in  his 
poems  which  demonstrate  how  often  and  how  sincerely 
he  must  have  enjoyed  this  sombre  luxury.  When  he  tes- 
tified, "  My  nature  leads  me  to  solitude,  and  every  day 
adds  to  this  disposition,"  his  words  expressed  the  simple 
truth,  and  no  freak  of  affectation.  His  mind  was  cast  in 
a  deep  and  gloomy  mould.  Few  could  adequately  sym- 
pathize with  him.  Conscious  of  this  he  strove  to  exag- 
gerate it,  with  an  emphatic  liking  for  whatever  empha- 
sized his  unlikeness  from  the  human  commonalty.  He 
drew  himself  in  such  characters  as  a  Childe  Harold,  — 
"Apart  he  stalked  in  joyless  reverie,"  —  a  Conrad,  a 
Lara  —  "  lord  of  himself,  that  heritage  of  woe,"  —  to  ex- 
aggerate the  more  his  contrast  with  other  men,  to  make 
them  wonder  and  tremble,  to  give  a  stronger  charge  to 
their  awe  and  curiosity  pertaining  to  him. 

He  took  a  dark  delight  in  cherishing  tragic  ideas  and 


BYRON.  293 

lookivig  on  objects  of  terror  from  which  other  persons 
would  shrink  horrified.  His  stormy  soul  felt  most  at 
home  with  the  storm.  Amidst  the  awful  revelry  of  the 
elements  on  the  benighted  Alps,  hearing  the  live  thunder 
leap  from  crag  to  crag,  seeing  the  lake  lit  into  a  phos- 
phoric sea,  he  longs  to  fly  abroad  in  the  carnival  of  nat 
ural  horrors,  a  disembodied  portion  of  the  tempest  and 
the  night.  His  passion  for  images  of  terror,  his  passion 
for  female  beauty,  his  passion  for  all  lonely  and  savage 
scenes  of  nature, — almost  exclusively  gratified  in  seclusion 
from  the  distractions  of  company,  —  fed  his  great  passion 
for  solitude,  because  there  he  felt  himself  lifted  into  dis- 
tinct prominence  from  other  men,  saved  from  what  he 
regarded  as  the  profane  vulgarity  of  being  sunk  and  con- 
fused in  the  mass  of  humanity.  He  loved  solitude  too 
because  it  set  his  faculties  free.  Men  of  his  style  of 
mind  are  intolerably  restive  under  any  external  restraint. 
Their  intractable  self-will  cannot  bear  a  yoke,  or  a  for- 
eign direction,  but  must  obey  its  own  impulse  alone. 

I  have  not  loved  the  world,  nor  the  world  me  ; 

I  have  not  flattered  its  rank  breath,  nor  bowed 

To  its  idolatries  a  patient  knee, 

Nor  coined  my  cheek  to  smiles,  nor  cried  aloud 

In  worship  of  an  echo.     In  the  crowd 

They  could  not  deem  me  one  of  such  ;  I  stood 

Among  them,  but  not  of  them  ;  in  a  shroud 

Of  thoughts  which  were  not  their  thoughts. 

The  morbid  bias  in  the  soul  of  Byron  received  a  darker 
and  more  decisive  turn  from  his  distress  at  the  marriage 
of  Mary  Chaworth.  His  mad  love  for  her,  his  grief  on 
her  wedlock  with  another,  the  permanent  influence  it 
exerted  on  his  character  and  fortunes,  are  depicted  in  his 
marvellous  poem,  "  The  Dream."  His  genius  spread  the 
wretched  workings  of  this  bitter  disappointment  over  all 
society.  He  felt  himself  singled  out  for  desolation  :  — 

As  some  lone  bird  without  a  mate, 
My  weary  heart  is  desolate  ; 
I  look  around  and  cannot  trace 
One  friendly  smile  or  welcome  face, 
And  even  in  crowds  am  still  alone. 


2Q4  SKETCHES   OF    LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

He  sought  relief  in  foreign  trayel.  Taking  the  page, 
Robert  Rushton,  in  his  train,  he  said,  "  I  like  him,  be- 
cause, like  myself,  he  seems  a  friendless  animal."  The 
scornful  review  given  to  his  juvenile  "  Hours  of  Idleness  " 
had  already  stung  him  to  the  production  of  a  vigorous 
satire,  which  had  made  him  suddenly  famous,  the  object 
of  attention  from  all  quarters. 

The  centres  of  contrast  or  sets  of  poles  in  his  mind 
furnished  by  the  opposite  ingredients  of  his  nature  and 
experience,  acquired  still  greater  power  when,  returning 
home,  he  published  the  first  two  cantos  of  "  Childe  Har- 
old." His  reputation  and  popularity  rose  to  an  extreme 
height.  He  became  the  most  observed  and  courted  of 
all  observers.  Then  followed,  in  swift  shocks  of  succes- 
sion, the  envy  of  mortified  rivals,  the  hatred  of  jealous 
inferiors,  the  sneers  of  incompetent  critics,  the  attacks  of 
the  religionists  whose  convictions  both  his  precepts  and 
his  practice  offended,  his  marriage,  and  the  separation  of 
his  wife  from  him.  The  outbreak  of  odium,  obloquy, 
calumny,  horror  which  came  upon  him,  in  suddenness 
and  intensity  and  extent  surpasses  belief.  It  would  have 
overwhelmed  any  one  whose  pride  was  less  colossal, 
whose  strength  less  obstinate,  whose  resources  less  rich, 
than  his.  Moore  says,  "  Such  an  outcry  was  raised 
against  Lord  Byron  as  in  no  case  of  private  life  perhaps 
was  ever  before  witnessed."  Bigots  and  the  galled  en- 
viers  of  his  success  gave  vent  to  their  dislike  of  him  in 
all  sorts  of  libels,  hints,  and  innuendoes  ;  and  good  people 
who  believed  him  the  foe  of  morality  and  religion,  swelled 
the  current  with  dark  interpretations  and  reports.  He 
was  cut  in  the  street,  and  excluded  from  all  but  the  few- 
est houses.  His  acquaintances  deserted  him.;  of  all 
the  obsequious  crowd  only  half  a  dozen  friends  stood  by 
him.  His  previous  recluseness  and  cynicism  took  on  a 
sullener  hue.  His  isolation  from  the  average  fellowships 
of  life  was  carried  to  its  climax.  He  left  his  country, 
never  more  to  return  until  brought  with  sword  and  laurel 
on  his  bier. 

Adieu,  adieu  !     My  native  shore 
Fades  e'er  the  w    ers  blue. 


BYRON.  295 

But  the  tempest  of  hate,  slander,  and  depreciation  was 
beating  behind  him,  and  chased  him  with  every  post.  A 
poem  published  at  that  time  referred  to  him  thus  :  — 

Wisely  he  seeks  some  yet  untrodden  shore, 

For  those  who  know  him  less  may  prize  him  more. 

And  in  a  rhyming  pamphlet,  addressed  to  him,  these 
lines  occur :  — 

Shunned  by  the  wise,  admired  by  fools  alone, 
The  good  shall  mourn  thee,  and  the  Muse  disown. 

This  to  the  author  of  the  "  Hebrew  Melodies,"  "  Man- 
fred," and  the  "  Prophecy  of  Dante,"  the  object  of  the 
admiring  homage  of  a  Shelley  and  a  Goethe,  the  electric 
shaker  of  his  age  !  A  writer  in  Blackwood  called  Venice 
"  the  lurking-place  of  his  selfish  and  polluted  exile."  In- 
sult and  injury  alight  on  a  spirit  like  that  of  Byron  as  a 
whirlwind  on  the  waters.  Sinful  and  faulty  as  he  was,  he 
deserved  not  a  tithe  of  the  penalty  inflicted.  Few  can 
know  how  sincere  and  how  fearful  were  his  sufferings.  It 
was  only  the  gigantic  power  of  his  personality  which  en- 
abled him  to  surmount  the  convulsing  experiences  heaped 
on  him.  He  said  :  "  I  felt  that  if  what  was  whispered 
and  muttered  and  murmured  was  true,  I  was  unfit  for 
England  ;  if  false,  England  was  unfit  for  me.  I  with- 
drew;  but  this' was  not  enough.  In  other  countries,  in 
Switzerland,  in  the  shadow  of  the  Alps,  and  by  the  blue 
depth  of  the  lakes,  I  was  pursued  and  breathed  upon  by 
the  same  blight."  How  painfully  he  felt  every  fresh  hurt 
appears  from  the  pains  he  took  to  avoid  them.  For  five 
years  in  his  exile  he  never  once  looked  into  an  English 
newspaper.  Those  unsympathetic  critics  who  sneer  at 
Byron  for  breaking  his  heart  in  public  once  a  month,  and 
making  melodramatic  capital  out  of  his  woes,  are  unjust 
to  him.  They  do  not  feel  the  fearful  severity  of  his  trial ; 
do  not  see  that  it  belonged  to  his  tenacious,  associative, 
creative  genius  to  accumulate  magnifying  materials  around 
every  seated  pang,  and  that  a  God  gave  to  him,  as  to 
Goethe,  power  to  find  some  relief  from  his  sufferings  by 
what  he  suffered.  His  self-agony  was  no  fiction 


296  SKETCHES    OF    LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

which  he  played  with  to  catch  attention,  but  a  fact  which 
he  had  to  deal  with  as  best  he  could.  It  became  the  cen- 
tral string  of  his  lyre  and  tone  of  his  voice.  He  is  to  be 
pitied  for  it,  not  scorned.  Those  literary  critics  who  rid- 
icule Petrarch,  Rousseau,  Byron,  for  making  an  exhibition 
of  their  personal  sorrows,  implying  that  they  themselves 
have  similar  or  severer  trials  of  wrongs,  noble  griefs  and 
loneliness,  only  they  are  too  great  and  modest  to  expose 
them  to  the  public,  —  these  critics  seem  not  to  be  con- 
scious that  they  reveal  in  double  refinement  the  very  trait 
they  complacently  condemn,  the  same  egotism  raised  to 
the  third  power.  Byron  virtually  says  :  "  O  world  !  I  am 
most  unhappy.  I  will  bear  my  undeserved  fate  with  de- 
fiant fortitude.  Look  on  my  grief  with  sympathy,  on  my 
heroism  with  admiration  !  "  His  critic  virtually  says,  half 
to  the  public,  half  in  self-pampering  soliloquy :  "  The 
afflictions  proper  to  exalted  genius  have  fallen  on  me  too ; 
but  the  compensating  triumphs  of  exalted  genius,  its 
strong  curative  reticence,  are  also  mine  still  more.  I  can- 
not stoop  to  expose  the  secrets  of  my  soul  to  the  vulgar 
world.  I  leave  them  to  the  insight  of  kindred  greatness." 
The  latter  pride,  which  repels  sympathy,  is  more  aggra- 
vated and  less  amiable  than  the  former,  which  seeks  sym- 
pathy. 

So  absorbing  and  acute  were  the  melancholy  and 
wretchedness  of  Byron,  that  it  is  rather  a  wonder,  as  he 
said,  that  he  did  not,  in  some  of  their  crises,  burst  a  blood- 
vessel or  blow  out  his  brains.  He  writes  in  his  private 
journal  one  day  :  "  O  God !  I  shall  go  mad  "  ;  relieving 
his  anguish  with  the  words  of  Lear.  With  his  nature, 
after  what  he  had  gone  through,  the  habit  of  an  exagger- 
ating and  revengeful  recollection  of  his  wrongs  and  mis- 
eries was  inevitable.  His  feeling  towards  those  who  were 
instrumental  in  his  domestic  ruin,  desertion,  and  banish- 
ment, was  fiendish.  His  letter  after  the  suicide  of  Rom- 
illy  is  absolutely  diabolical.  "  Do  you  suppose,"  he  saysj 
"  that  I  have  forgotten  or  forgiven  the  deliberate  desola- 
tion piled  upon  me  when  I  stood  alone  upon  my  hearth 
with  my  household  gods  shivered  around  me?'  It  has 
comparatively  swallowed  up  in  me  every  other  feeling 


BYRON.  297 

and  I  am  only  a  spectator  upon  earth  till  a  tenfold  oppor- 
tunity offers."  The  workings  of  this  habit  in  generating 
unhappiness  were  as  pernicious  as  its  moral  quality  was 
bad.  Yet  he  has  undoubtedly  expressed  it  with  poetical 
extravagance,  for  he  was  essentially  generous,  though  not 
religiously  forgiving.  A  truer  reflection  of  him  is  seen  in 
the  verse,  — 

Here  's  a  sigh  to  those  who  love  me, 

And  a  smile  to  those  who  hate ; 
And,  whatever  sky 's  above  me, 
Here 's  a  heart  for  every  fate. 

He  had  a  diseased  sensitiveness  to  affronts,  and  could 
not  endure  being  looked  down  upon.  In  his  unhappy 
departure  from  his  country,  he  spread  the  distempered 
feeling  of  hostility  over  all  his  countrymen,  and  shunned 
them  with  a  tremulous  revulsion  poorly  coated  with  arro- 
gance. "Rome  is  pestilent  with  English."  "  I  abhor  the 
nation,  and  the  nation  me."  "  In  two  or  three  years  this 
tribe  of  wretches  will  be  swept  home  again,  and  the  Con 
tinent  will  be  roomy  and  agreeable."  "  As  to  the  estima- 
tion of  the  English,  let  them  calculate  what  it  is  wor'h 
before  they  insult  me  with  their  insolent  condescension." 
The  isolating  and  embittering  influences  of  Byron's  quar- 
rel with  his  country,  and  of  his  long  exile,  were  envenomed 
by  his  habits  of  life  and  by  the  character  of  many  of  his 
associates.  Plunging  deeply  into  dissipation,  spending 
much  time  in  company  with  persons  of  depraved  tastes, 
loose  principles,  and  bad  experience,  his  irregularities 
preyed  on  both  his  health  and  his  heart,  familiarized  him 
with  the  baser  and  sadder  phases  of  human  life  and  hu- 
man nature,  and  tended  strongly  to  make  him  sick  of 
man  and  weary  of  existence.  VVe  have  his  own  mature 
testimony  as  to  dissipation,  that 

It  is  a  sad  thing,  and  not  only  tramples 

On  our  fresh  feelings,  but  —  as  being  participated 

With  all  kinds  of  incorrigible  samples 

Of  frail  humanity  —  must  make  us  selfish, 

And  shut  our  souls  up  in  us  like  a  shellfish. 

In  melancholy  answer  to  the  question  why  he  played, 
drank,  rode,  wrote,  he  said  :  "  To  make  some  hour  less 
13* 


298  SKETCHES    OF   LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

dreary."  "  I  have  had  a  devilish  deal  of  tear  and  wear 
of  mind  and  body  in  my  time."  "  As  I  grow  older,  the 
indifference,  not  to  life,  but  to  the  stimuli  of  life,  in 
creases."  "  My  heart  is  as  gray  as  my  hair." 

Count  o'er  the  joys  thine  hours  have  seen, 
Count  o'er  thy  days  from  anguish  free. 

And  know,  whatever  thou  hast  been, 
'T  is  something  better  not  to  be. 

'  "  Selfishness  is  always  the  substratum  of  our  damnable 
clay."  He  was  alienated  and  set  apart  from  the  conven- 
tional sympathies  of  society  by  his  contemptuous  rejection 
of  the  theological  beliefs  of  his  time,  not  less  than  by  his 
reckless  mode  of  life.  The  hue  and  cry  against  him  was 
greatly  swelled  by  the  angry  votaries  of  the  creed  he  re- 
pudiated. The  puissance  of  independent  reason  was  a 
chief  current  in  the  inspiration  of  power  by  which  he 
stood  against  the  world  and  shaped  his  enduring  verse. 

But  among  the  slaves  of  vice,  in  the  revels  of  abandoned 
indulgence,  in  the  academy  of  mockery  and  scoffing,  he 
could  never  be  at  home  and  at  peace.  He  was  an  eagle, 
not  a  buzzard.  Still  his  smitten  lyre  vibrates, — 

Though  gay  companions  o'er  the  bowl 
Dispel  awhile  the  sense  of  ill ; 
Though  pleasure  fires  the  maddening  soul, 
The  heart  —  the  heart  is  lonely  still. 

He  longed  for  sympathy  in  his  best  thoughts  and  feelings ; 
he  wanted  sincere  love  and  praise  ;  but  his  pride,  stung  by 
frequent  repulses,  would  not  let  him  simply  own  the  want. 
He  gave  it  indirect  expression  in  his  dark  lamentations  : — • 

The  fire  which  on  my  bosom  preys 
Is  lone  as  some  volcanic  isle  :  — 

and  perverse  expression  in  proud  assertions  of  self-suffic- 
ing solitude  : — 

I  stood  and  stand  alone,  —  remembered  or  forgot. 

In  an  eloquent  letter  he  dedicated  the  fourth  canto  of 
Childe  Harold  to  his  friend  Hobhouse,  "to  relieve  a 


BYRON.  299 

heart  which  has  not  elsewhere,  or  lately,  been  so  much 
accustomed  to  the  encounter  of  good-will  as  to  withstand 
the  shock  firmly."  Despite  his  sport  and  sarcasm  he  was 
earnest  at  bottom,  and  his  heart  was  ever  flying  to  his 
head.  He  said, 

Though  hymned  by  every  harp,  unless,  within, 
Your  heart  joins  chorus,  fame  is  but  a  din. 

Though  Byron  had  fits  of  disgust  and  anger  with  the 
world  of  mankind,  he  was  never  a  settled  misanthrope. 
He  was  of  too  rich  and  high  an  order  for  chronic  malig- 
nity. Those  appearances  and  expressions  thought  to 
imply  the  contrary  of  this  are  sometimes  poetic  extrava- 
gances, and  always  rest  on  grounds  quite  distinct  from  a 
deliberate  hate  of  his  kind.  It  is  true  that  he  says,  with 
cool  literality,  "  The  more  I  see  of  men  the  less  I  like 
them  "  :  true,  that  he  sings  in  fervid  verse,  — 

We  have  had  our  reward  —  and  it  is  here  ; 
That  we  can  yet  feel  gladdened  by  the  sun, 
And  reap  from  eafth,  sea,  joy  almost  as  clear 
As  if  there  were  no  man  to  trouble  what  is  clear. 

These,  however,  are  vents  of  his  bubbling  resentments, 
not  of  his  deepest  tendencies  and  sentiments.  He  loved 
other  things  more,  rather  than  man  less.  His  love  of 
solitude  was  glorious,  not  sullen.  He  used  it  not  to 
fabricate  plots  of  vengeance,  but  for  creations  of  beauty 
and  emotional  reveries.  He  asks  and  answers,  — 

Why  do  they  call  me  misanthrope  ?     Because 
They  hate  me,  not  I  them. 

Misanthropes  are  not  liberals  in  politics,  nor  profuse  in 
relieving  misery  with  their  money.  Byron,  notwithstand- 
ing his  rank,  was  a  republican,  a  deadly  hater  of  every 
form  of  despotism,  a  martyr  to  Greek  liberty,  and  always 
munificently  kind  in  helping  the  distressed.  It  was  in 
indignant  vexation  at  the  restoration  of  the  Bourbons  that 
he  dashed  in  his  journal,  "  To  be  sure  I  have  long  de- 
spised myself  and  man,  but  I  never  spat  in  the  face  of  my 
species  before."  Undoubtedly  he  had  an  undue  amount 


300  SKETCHES   OF   LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

of  anger  and  contempt,  the  result  of  his  flaming  sensi- 
bility, no  sign  of  stagnant  affection.  His  thrilling  flesh, 
electric  blood,  thrilling  nerves,  must  perforce  render  him 
impatient  of  obtuseness  and  affectation  and  incompetency. 
He  demanded  action  in  others  on  the  height  of  his  own. 
"  I  remember  at  Chamouni,  in  the  very  eyes  of  Mont 
Blanc,  hearing  an  Englishwoman  exclaim  to  her  party, 
'  Did  you  ever  see  anything  more  rural  ? '  As  if  it  was 
Highgate  or  Hampstead.  '  Rural ! '  quotha  ?  Rocks, 
pines,  torrents,  glaciers,  clouds,  and  summits  of  eternal 
snow  far  above  them  —  and  'rural' !" 

Byron  loved  to  be  alone  because  he  keenly  resented 
the  hurts  and  hostilities  he  had  experienced,  and  because 
he  shrank  in  all  his  better  moods  from  the  comparatively 
ignorant,  frivolous,  and  insensible  average  of  society.  He 
said  that  "  the  reason  why  he  disliked  society  was  that  the 
follies  and  passions  of  others  excited  the  evil  qualities  of 
his  own  nature."  When  alone,  he  put  on  his  royal  pre- 
rogatives, and  rose  along  the  blue  wilderness  of  intermi- 
nable air,  to  coast  the  crystal  worlds  of  infinity,  and  sound 
the  mysterious  treasures  of  truth  and  beauty  with  the  pal- 
pitating doubt  and  terror  in  which  he  delighted.  The 
overwhelming  mind  that  produced  "  Cain "  must  have 
loved  to  retire  apart  with  its  forces,  which  strike  stars  into 
chaos  and  mould  chaos  into  stars ;  its  thoughts,  which  com- 
press immensity  into  a  point  and  expand  a  point  into  im- 
mensity ;  its  events,  which  are  rare  in  time  though  frequent 
in  eternity  ;  its  vision  of  God 

On  his  vast  and  solitary  throne 
Creating  worlds  to  make  eternity 
Less  burdensome  to  his  immense  existence 
And  unparticipated  solitude. 

Well  indeed  might  he  say  that  could  he  have  kept  his 
spirit  to  such  flights  he  had  been  happy  ;  but  in  the 
restraints  of  human  dwellings  he  became  a  thing  of  worn 
and  weary  restlessness.  It  was  his  last  redemptive  re- 
source to  keep  his  mind  in  frequent  hours  free  from  the 
dominion  of  worldly  intercourse,  and  find  or  make 

A  life  within  himself,  to  breathe  without  mankind. 


BYRON.  301 

He  loved  loneliness  because  in  it  he  possessed  the  un- 
trammelled enjoyment  of  his  own  powers,  and  particularly 
because  he  could  indulge  the  delicious  and  unfathomable 
tenderness  of  his  ideal  affections.  It  is  impossible  to 
read  the  various  poems  he  addressed  to  his  sister  Au 
gusta,  especially  that  wondrous  autobiographic  piece 
written  at  Diodati  in  his  twenty-eighth  year,  and  not  be 
drawn  to  him  with  a  mingled  yearning  of  love,  pity,  and 
admiration. 

O  that  thou  wert  but  with  me  !     But  I  grow 
The  fool  of  my  own  wishes,  and  forget* 
The  solitude  which  I  have  vaunted  so, 
Has  lost  its  praise  in  this  but  one  regret 

Soured  as  he  was  on  the  surface,  the  depths  remained 
sweet,  and  his  misanthropy  was  only  lip-deep.  One  day 
seeing  a  kid  vainly  trying  to  get  over  a  fence  and  piteous- 
ly  bleating,  he  dismounted,  and  with  much  pains  helped 
it  over.  He  loved  little  children,  as  the  savage  and  de- 
praved do  not.  And  he  was  incapable  of  ingratitude 

The  heart  must 

Leap  kindly  back  to  kindness,  though  disgust 
Hath  weaned  it  from  all  wordlings  :  thus  he  felt. 

The  quiet  sail  of  his  boat  on  Lake  Leman  was  as  a 
noiseless  wing  to  waft  him  from  distraction.  Surely  a 
gentle  and  noble  heart  speaks  in  the  wish  :  — 

O  that  the  desert  were  my  dwelling-place, 
With  one  fair  spirit  for  my  minister, 
That  I  might  all  forget  the  human  race, 
And,  hating  no  one,  love  but  only  her  ! 

His  shrinking  from  ungenial  fellowship  in  the  higher 
moments  of  his  consciousness,  his  thirst  for  the  restora- 
tive nutrition  of  solitude,  and  his  magnanimous  recoil 
from  the  detestable  acridity  of  experience,  are  all  finely 
shown  in  the  following  lines  :  — 

There  is  too  much  of  man  here,  to  look  through 
\Vith  a  fit  mind  the  might  which  I  behold  ; 
But  soon  in  me  shall  loneliness  renew 


302       SKETCHES  OF  LONELY  CHARACTERS. 

Thoughts  hid  but  not  less  cherished  than  of  old, 

Ere  mingling  with  the  herd  had  penned  me  in  their  fold. 

To  fly  from  need  not  be  to  hate  mankind ; 

All  are  not  fit  with  them  to  stir  and  toil. 

With  all  his  pride  and  power  Byron  lacked  the  com- 
placency which  is  the  base  of  happiness.  He  was  at  war 
with  himself,  torn  between  contending  energies.  He  was 
not  his  own  friend.  Milton,  with  his  interior  unity  and 
peace,  reverenced  and  loved  himself  with  an  august 
steadiness.  He  was  his  own  friend  in  calm  and  uniform 
companionship.  But  Byron,  seeing  much  within  to  honor 
and  much  to  condemn,  much  to  applaud  and  much  to 
deplore,  rather  admired  and  pitied,  than  reverenced  and 
loved,  himself-  His  interior  division  and  perturbation 
were  full  of  unhappiness.  Half  dust,  half  deity,  he  alter- 
nately lauded  and  loathed  himself,  now  haughtily  skirring 
extinguished  worlds  and  gazing  on  eternity,  now  sensible 
of  grovelling  wants  and  littleness.  At  one  moment,  he 
sonorously  cries, 

I  may  stand  alone, 
But  would  not  change  my  free  thoughts  for  a  throne  ; 

at  another,  he  mourns  that  he  was  ever  born,  and  medi- 
tates suicide.  Such  scorn  and  dislike  as  he  had  for  his 
kind  were  a  reflection  of  his  scorn  and  dislike  for  him- 
self. 

Fain  would  I  fly  the  haunts  of  men,  — 

I  seek  to  shun,  not  hate  mankind  : 

My  breast  requires  the  sullen  glen 

Whose  gloom  may  suit  a  darkened  mind. 

He  bore  a  melancholy  bosom  and  was  of  a  moody  tex- 
ture from  his  earliest  day,  believing  himself  predestined 
to  woes.  "  I  never  could  keep  alive  even  a  dog  that  I 
liked  or  that  liked  me,"  he  wrote,  when  the  Countess 
Guiccioli  fell  sick.  His  peculiar  trials  confirmee  this 
fatal  proclivity.  Once,  in  the  streets  of  Venice,  ,vith 
Moore,  late  at  night,  he  saw  a  poor  destitute  creature 
moaning  in  pain  ;  he  gave  her  money  and  soothing  words  ; 
when  she  rose  up,  and,  walking  before  him,  mocked  the 
sidling  motion  his  lameness  gave  his  gait.  He  passed  on 
without  a  word.  To  appreciate  his  sufferings  we  must 


BYRON.  303 

understand  his  exquisite  susceptibility,  together  with  the 
noble  impulses  native  to  his  soul.  "  Tell  me  that  Walter 
Scott  is  better.  I  would  not  have  him  ill  for  the  world," 
he  wrote  to  Murray.  The  gorgeous  and  solemn  elo- 
quence of  his  Monody  on  Sheridan  is  the  expression  of 
a  generous  and  mighty  heart.  His  valet  in  Ravenna  saw 
him  kneel  on  the  pavement  before  the  tomb  of  Dante, 
and  weep.  His  emotions  were  so  violent  on  seeing  a 
representation  of  Alfieri's  Mirra  in  the  theatre  at  Bologna, 
that  he  was  seriously  indisposed  for  several  days  from  the 
effects  of  "  the  convulsions,  the  agony  of  reluctant  tears, 
and  the  choking  shudder."  With  such  a  temperament,  a 
nature  so  at  variance  in  itself,  and  sent  through  a  dire 
ordeal,  it  is  not  strange  that  at  times  he  thought 

Too  long  and  darkly,  till  his  brain  became, 
In  its  own  eddy  boiling  and  o'erwrought, 
A  whirling  gulf  of  phantasy  and  flame. 

There  was  also  in  Byron  an  element  of  perversity,  the 
result  of  his  injured  pride  pouring  from  above  upon  the 
teeming  tenderness'  below.  The  obscure  working  of 
these  two  elements  in  combination  gave  him  a  perverse 
liking  to  invert  the  demands  of  others,  baffle  their  expec- 
tations, and  appear  worse  than  he  was.  He  liked  to  sur- 
round himself  with  mystery,  even  with  dread,  for  the  sake 
of  the  curiosity  it  provoked.  He  sought  to  blacken  him- 
self beyond  the  truth,  for  two  reasons.  First,  it  distin- 
guished him  from  other  men,  who  wish  to  seem  better 
than  they  are  ;  he  would  seem  worse  than  he  was  :  it  was 
the  implicit  satire  in  which  he  clothed  his  scorn  of  hypoc- 
risy. Secondly,  it  was  a  comfort  to  him,  it  sustained  him 
in  his  own  eyes,  to  react  from  other  people's  unjust  esti 
mate  of  him  to  his  own  knowledge  of  the  truth.  Giving 
fifty  guineas  to  an  unfortunate  Venetian,  —  when  asked 
what  he  had  done,  he  would  say  :  "  I  told  him  to  go 
about  his  business";  and  then  take  pleasure  in  turning 
from  the  mistaken  verdict  of  "cruel  "  to  the  approval  of 
his  own  conscience. 

In  practice  Byron  longed  for  the  esteem  and  love  of 
his  fellows,  loved  and  praised  the  richness  of  the  world. 


304  SKETCHES    OF    LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

In  experience  he  was  wretched,  in  consequence  of  the 
discord  of  his  faculties  and  aims  :  because  he  had  not 
attained  to  inner  unity.  In  theory,  desiring  to  reconcile 
the  incongruity,  and  justify  himself,  he  asked,  Why  am 
I  so  unhappy?  The  answer  he  gave  was,  Because  men 
are  bad,  and  the  world  is  poor.  How  much  sounder  the 
aphorism  of  the  strong,  wise  Goethe  :  — 

Wouldst  lead  a  happy  life  on  earth  ? 

Thou  must,  then,  clothe  the  world  with  worth  ! 

Byron  would  have  outgrown  his  unhappiness  if  he  had 
resolutely  labored  with  clear  purpose  to  suppress  his  too 
sharp  and  constant  consciousness  of  himself  and  of  his 
distracted  relationships.  A  pampered  and  tyrannical  idea 
of  self,  or  a  despised  and  scourged  idea  of  self,  is  irrec- 
oncilable with  happiness.  An  objective  treatment  of 
self  in  the  light  of  truth,  as  any  other  object  is  treated, 
will  gradually  adjust  it  so  that  the  truth  itself  will  be 
agreeable  to  it  and  attune  it  to  a  firm  concord.  He  did 
not  live  long  enough  to  work  himself  clear  of  the  fecu- 
lence of  his  will,  the  slag  of  his  passion,  and  become  a 
pure  intelligence,  a  serene  and  joyous  force.  So  mightily 
endowed  was  he  it  seems  a  few  years  more  must  have 
brought  him  the  religious  victory  all  the  supreme  masters 
have  won.  He  would  have  conquered  the  lesson  that 
detachment,  self-renunciation,  is  the  only  path  for  the 
morbid  and  moody  individual  into  the  free,  glad,  healthy 
life  of  nature  and  humanity. 

That  fiery  breast  is  cold  now,  that  titanic  spirit  at  rest. 
It  is  well.     If  his  was  the  pain,  be  the  moral  ours. 


BLANCO    WHITE. 

AN  impressive  exemplification  of  the  cruel  treatment 
and  isolation  consequent  on  an  abandonment  of  conven- 
tional opinions  and  usages  in  obedience  to  personal  con- 
victions of  truth,  is  seen  in  the  life  of  that  beautiful  type 
of  Christian  character,  the  tender-hearted,  self-sacrificing 
and  heroically  truthful  Joseph  Blanco  White.  Born  in 


BLANCO    WHITE.  305 

Spain,  reared  a  Catholic,  his  conscientious  inquiries  led 
him  to  become  successively  —  after  he  had  taken  up  his 
abode  in  England — an  Episcopalian,  a  Unitarian,  a  free 
theist ;  and,  as  the  penalty  of  his  disinterested  search  for 
truth  and  adherence  to  his  conclusions,  he  died,  in  the 
purest  spirit  of  martyrdom,  poor,  obscure,  sadly  solitary. 
As  could  not  but  be  the  case  in  such  a  country  as  Eng- 
land, a  few  noble  friends  loved  him  as  he  deserved  to  be 
loved,  and  never  forsook  him.  One  of  them  has  given 
us  the  story  of  his  life,  —  a  precious  legacy  for  the  spirits 
who  are  pure  enough,  lofty  and  devoted  enough,  to  appre- 
ciate it. 

A  friend  whom  nature  had  exempted  from  doubt  on 
subjects  which  habit  and  feeling  had  sanctioned  to  him, 
once  found  Blanco  White  "  bathed  in  tears,  lamenting 
that  his  faith  had  vanished  without  the  least  hope  of  re- 
covering it."  The  constitution  of  his  mind  made  it  im- 
possible for  him  to  stop  inquiry,  and  he  was  often  torn 
with  pain  on  discovering  that  his  fancied  belief  of  doc- 
trines had  really  arisen  from  sympathy  with  persons 
whom  he  loved,  and  whose  esteem  he  could  not  preserve 
without  subscribing  their  creed.  After  hearing  how  sore 
his  Episcopalian  friends  were  because  he  had  found  him- 
self obliged  to  leave  their  church,  he  writes  in  his  jour 
nal :  —  "I  have  taken,  as  usual,  a  walk  in  the  cemetery. 
Sitting,  very  tired,  among  the  tombs,  the  following  thought 
occurred  to  me.  He  who  deceives,  injures  mankind  ;  by 
not  separating  myself  from  the  Church  of  England,  I 
should  deceive  ;  therefore,  by  not  separating,  I  should 
injure  mankind.  Kind  and  excellent  friends  seem  to 
take  a  delight  in  saying  to  me  that  I  have  given  a  mortal 
stab  to  my  usefulness.  Secret  feeling  does  not  allow 
them  to  perceive  that  what  leads  them  to  say  so  is 
the  desire  of  giving  me  a  stab ;  for  I  have  already 
taken  a  decided  step,  and  that  observation  can  have 
no  effect  but  that  of  adding  to  my  sufferings.  Do 
they  think  that  I  have  acted  according  to  my  conscience, 
or  against  it  ?  The  latter  is  inconceivable  ;  but  if  I  have 
acted  according  to  the  dictates  of  my  conscience,  do  they 
wish  I  had  acted  against  them  ?  Do  they  wish  that  the 


306  SKETCHES  OF  LONELY  CHARACTERS. 

stab  should  be  given  my  conscience  instead  of  my  useful- 
ness ? ''  A  year  and  a  half  later  he  wrote,  "  The  violence 
of  party  feeling  and  the  selfish  worldliness  prominent 
around,  make  me  shrink  more  and  more  from  all  contact 
with  society.  I  feel  that  I  must  wait  for  death  in  this 
perfect  moral  solitude,  without  a  single  human  being  near 
me  to  whom  I  may  look  up  for  that  help  and  sympathy 
which  old  men  that  have  walked  on  the  beaten  paths  of 
life  expect  when  their  dissolution  approaches."  On  at- 
tending the  funeral  of  a  clergyman,  he  says  :  "  I  could 
not  prevent  a  tear  from  rolling  down  when  the  coffin  was 
lowered.  There  is,  indeed,  much  of  my  sensibility 
which  is  nervous  ;  yet  a  mind  so  stored  with  baffled  af- 
fections and  regrets  as  mine,  may  be  excused  for  its  weak- 
ness. My  efforts  to  suppress  external  marks  of  feeling 
are  very  great,  but  not  equal  to  the  object.  My  tear, 
however,  was  not  for  the  deceased  personally,  with  whom 
I  was  not  at  all  intimate.  It  was  for  humanity,  suffering, 
struggling,  aspiring,  daily  perishing  and  renewed  humani- 
ty. It  is  not  death  that  moves  me ;  but  the  contempla- 
tion of  the  rough  path  and  the  darkened  mental  atmos- 
phere which  the  human  passions  and  interests,  disguised 
as  religion,  oblige  us  to  tread  and  cross  on  our  way  to  the 
grave."  After  this  touching  glimpse  into  the  depths  of 
his  soul,  it  is  piteous  to  read  such  expressions  in  his  jour- 
nal as  follow :  "  I  felt  so  oppressed  by  solitude  in  the 
afternoon,  that  I  desired  Margaret  to  sit  in  the  room, 
that  I  might  see  a  human  being.  My  solitude  in  this 
world  (I  do  not  mean  the  absence  of  company)  increases 
in  a  most  melancholy  degree.  Intellectual  convictions, 
at  least  with  me,  are  powerful  in  the  regulation  of  con- 
duct, but  very  weak  in  regard  to  the  feelings."  What  af- 
fecting pathos  and  nobleness  of  spirit  mingle  in  this  epit- 
ome of  his  life,  written  by  him  in  the  album  of  one  of 
his  dearest  friends ! 

Reader,  thou  look'st  upon  a  barren  page  : 

The  blighting  hand  of  pain,  the  snows  of  age, 

Have  quenched  the  spark  that  might  have  made  it  glow. 

Long  has  the  writer  wandered  here  below, 

Not  friendless,  but  alone.      For  the  foul  hand 

Of  Superstition  snapped  every  band 


LEOPARDI.  307 

That  knit  him  to  his  kindred  :  then  he  fled  ; 

But  after  him  the  hideous  monster  sped 

In  various  shapes,  and  raised  a  stirring  cry  : 

"  That  villain  will  not  act  a  pious  lie. " 

Men,  women,  stare,  discuss,  but  all  insist, 

"  The  man  must  be  a  shocking  Atheist." 

Brother  or  sister,- whatsoe'er  thou  art  ! 

Couldst  thou  but  see  the  fang  that  gnaws  my  heart, 

Thou  wouldst  forgive  this  transient  gush  of  scorn, 

Wouldst  shed  a  tear,  in  pity  wouldst  thou  mourn 

For  one  who,  spite  the  wrongs  that  lacerate 

His  weary  soul,  has  never  learned  to  hate. 

Much  later  he  said,  "  How  vehemently  I  long  to  be  in 
the  world  of  the  departed  !  "  And  again,  "  My  bodily 
sufferings  are  dreadful,  and  the  misery  produced  by  my 
solitude  is  not  to  be  described.  But  trusting  in  God's 
Spirit  within  me,  I  await  my  dissolution  without  fear. 
Into  thy  hands,  O  Eternal  Lord  of  life,  of  love,  of  virtue, 
I  commend  my  spirit."  And  then  at  last,  the  glad  hour, 
so  long  waited  for,  came  ;  and  that  divine  soul  sped  to  its 
infinite  release,  no  longer  to  be  an  exile  for  truth's  sake, 
to  pine  for  love  no  more,  never  again  to  know  what  it  is 
to  be  lonely. 

LEOPARDI. 

PERHAPS  no  one  of  all  the  men  of  genius  who  have  lived 
in  recent  times  has  had  so  lonely  a  soul  and  led  so  lone- 
ly a  life  as  Leopardi,  the  Italian  philologist,  thinker,  and 
poet,  whose  name  is  growing  into  fame,  as  his  character 
and  fate  are  becoming  known  and  winning  more  of  love 
and'  pity.  His  intellect,  imagination,  and  heart  alike  were 
remarkable  for  their  scope  and  fervor.  He  dared  to 
think  without  checks,  and  to  accept  as  truth  whatever  he 
saw  as  such.  Consequently  he  rejected  the  common 
notions  prevalent  around  him,  and  was  pointed  at  as  a 
sceptic.  He  loved  his  country  with  a  burning  patriotism  ; 
her  bondage  and  torpor,  and  the  supine  degradation  of 
her  children,  alternately  aroused  his  indignation  and  op- 
pressed him  with  the  deepest  sadness.  His  sense  of  his 
own  powers  was  high,  enkindling  a  grand  ambition  which 
his  unfortunate  circumstances  combined  to  irritate,  thwart 


308  SKETCHES   OF   LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

and  baffle.  "  Mediocrity  frightens  me,"  he  says,  "  my 
wish  is  to  love,  and  become  great  by  genius  and  study." 
His  intense  susceptibility  to  beauty,  his  impassioned  and 
exacting  sympathy,  created  in  him  the  deepest  necessity 
for  love  ;  but  his  deformity,  poverty,  and  sickness,  pre- 
vented the  fulfilment  of  this  master  desire.  Opposed  by 
a  hostile  fate  within  and  without,  disappointed  at  every 
turn,  without  health  of  body  or  peace  of  mind,  accept- 
ing in  its  direst  extent  that  philosophy  of  despair  which 
denies  God,  Providence,  and  Immortality  ;  surrounded 
for  the  most  part  by  tyrannical  bigots  and  ignorant  boors, 
possessed  by  an  inexpressible  melancholy,  alleviated  only 
by  the  activities  of  his  own  genius  and  the  occasional 
attentions  of  one  or  two  friends  and  correspondents,  — 
the  unhappy  Leopardi  lived  in  the  deepest  and  saddest  of 
solitudes.  Knowing  how  great  his  intellectuality  and 
his  sensibility  were,  it  makes  one's  heart  ache  to  read  his 
recorded  wish  that  he  might  become  a  bird,  in  order,  for 
a  little  season,  to  experience  their  happiness  and  peace. 
He  has  partially  described  the  hopeless  monotony  of 
his  life,  in  the  -dilapidated  old  town  of  Recanati,  in  his 
poem,  "  La  Vita  Solitaria."  In  the  poem  on  the  "  Recol- 
lections of  Youth,"  he  paints  the  dismal  and  trying  lone- 
liness of  his  maturity  with  painful  power  :  — 

Condemned  to  waste  and  pass  my  prime 

In  this  wild  native  village,  amid  a  race 

Unlearned  and  dull,  to  whom  fair  Wisdom's  name, 

And  Knowledge,  like  the  names  of  strangers  sound, 

An  argument  of  laughter  and  of  jest  ; 

They  hated  me  and  fled  me.     Not  that  they 

Were  envious  ;  of  no  greater  destiny 

They  held  me  than  themselves  ;  but  that  I  bore 

Esteem  for  my  own  being  in  my  heart, 

Though  ne'er  to  man  disclosed  by  any  sign. 

Here  passed  my  years,  recluse  and  desolate, 

Without  or  love  or  life.     Bitter  and  harsh 

Among  the  unkindly  multitude  I  grew. 

Here  was  I  robbed  of  pity  and  of  trust, 

And,  studying  the  poor  herd,  became  of  men 

A  scorner  most  disdainful.     Ah,  at  times 

My  thoughts  to  you  go  back,  O  hopes,  to  you, 

Blessed  imaginations  of  my  youth  ! 

When  I  regard  my  life,  so  mean,  and  poor, 


LEOPARDI.  309 

And  mournful,  and  that  death  alone  is  all 
To  which  so  much  of  hope  has  brought  my  days, 
I  feel  my  heart  stand  still,  and  know  not  how 
To  be  consoled  for  such  a  destiny. 

The  soul  of  Leopardi  was  too  powerful  —  surpassingly 
affectionate  and  terribly  disappointed  as  he  was  in  life  — 
to  permit  him  usually  to  express  his  misanthropy,  his  grief 
and  wretchedness,  either  in  sentimental  sighs  or  in  wails  of 
despair.  His  dark  views  and  unhappy  feelings  vented  them- 
selves rather  in  forms  of  smiling  irony,  philosophic  satire, 
and  a  quiet  humor,  wherein  tender  melancholy  and  bitter 
force  of  thought  are  equally  mixed.  His  writings  are 
marked  by  classic  finish  and  repose.  The  manly  courage 
and  fortitude  that  breathe  in  them  are  not  less  obvious  than 
the  plaintiveness  —  not  lackadaisical,  but  heroic  —  which 
betrays  how  constant  and  deep  his  pain  was.  The  cause 
of  his  spiritual  isolation  and  misery  was  not  merely  his 
rare  genius  and  earnestness,  absorbing  thought  and  study, 
not  merely  his  profound  unbelief,  not  merely  his  yearning 
and  regurgitating  affection,  but  also  his  chronic  ill-health 
and  nervous  exhaustion.  Nearly  all  his  life  he  was  the 
victim  of  depressing  physical  disease.  He  says,  "  It  ap- 
pears to  me  that  weariness  is  of  the  nature  of  air,  which 
fills  all  the  space  intervening  between  material  things,  and 
all  the  voids  contained  in  them.  When  anything  is  re- 
moved and  the  room  is  not  filled  by  another  thing, 
weariness  takes  its  place  immediately.  Thus  all  the 
interstices  of  human  life  between  the  pleasures  and  mis- 
fortunes are  filled  up  with  weariness." 

From  the  bleaker  climate  and  more  inhospitable  society 
of  Recanati,  Leopardi  wandered  to  Florence,  Bologna, 
Rome,  and  lastly  to  Naples.  Here  he  died  in  the  arms 
of  his  good  and  dear  friend  Ranieri.  He  had  written  in 
his  fine  poem  of  "  Love  and  Death,"  —  "  the  two  sweet 
lords,  friends  to  the  human  race,  to  whom  fate  gave 
being  together," —  at  the  close  of  this  poem  he  had  said, 
"Lovely  Death!  bow  to  the  power  of  unaccustomed 
prayers,  and  shut  my  sad  eyes  to  the  light.  Calm,  alone, 
I  await  the  time  when  I  shall  sleep  on  thy  virgin  breast." 

Rarely  has   death    been    more   welcome  to  a  mortal, 


310  SKETCHES   OF   LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

rarely  has  one  lived  capable  of  a  keener  or  vaster  happi- 
ness, had  his  fellow-creatures  but  come  up  to  the  standard 
his  genius  exacted,  and  answered  his  cravings.  In  the 
suburbs  of  Naples,  in  the  little  church  of  San  Vitale, 
stands  the  monument  reared  by  the  loving  friend  and 
biographer  on  whose  bosom  "  he  gave  up  his  soul  with 
an  inetfable  and  angelic  smile."  The  traveller  who  lin- 
gers to  read  the  inscription,  traced  by  the  pen  of  Giober- 
ti,  draws  a  deep  sigh,  and  hopes  that  the  great  hapless 
spirit  whose  clayey  part  sleeps  there,  is  now,  in  a  higher 
form,  under  fairer  conditions,  enjoying  the  harmony  and 
love  he  so  vainly  longed  for  here. 


FOSTER. 

THE  author  of  the  essay  on  "  Decision  of  Character,' 
John  Foster,  was  always  distinguished  for  his  separatenesa 
of  life  and  soul.  His  capacious,  earnest,  sombre,  ex- 
tremely sensitive  and  tenacious  cast  of  mind  unfitted  him 
to  herd  with  society.  The  greater  his  need  the  less  his 
fitness.  Contrasting  himself  with  a  lady  whose  "  habit 
was  so  settled  to  solitude  that  she  often  felt  the  occasional 
hour  spent  with  some  other  human  beings  tedious  and 
teasing,"  he  says  :  "  Why  is  this  being  that  looks  at  me 
and  talks,  whose  bosom  is  warm,  whose  nature  and  wants 
resemble  my  own,  more  to  me  than  all  the  inanimate  ob- 
jects on  earth  and  all  the  stars  of  heaven  ?  Delightful 
necessity  of  my  nature  !  But  to  what  a  world  of  disap- 
pointments and  vexations  is  this  social  feeling  liable,  and 
how  few  are  made  happy  by  it  in  any  such  degree  as  I 
picture  to  myself  and  long  for !  "  Expressing  his  sympa- 
thy with  his  friend  Mrs.  Mant,  who  had  complained  of 
feeling  desolate  and  solitary  among  uncongenial  neighbors, 
he  says  :  "  Shall  you  be  sorry  that .  your  mind  is  too 
thoughtful  and  too  religious  to  suit  their  society  ?  Could 
you  be  willing  to  humble  yourself  to  a  complacent  agree- 
ment with  their  levity  or  their  oddity  ?  You  ought  to  feel 
your  superiority,  and  dismiss  the  anxious  wish  for  a  com- 
panionship which  you  cannot  purchase  but  by  descending 


CHANNING.  311 

to  a  level  where  you  would  never  feel  happy  if  you  did 
descend  to  it."  After  spending  an  hour  with  a  handsome 
but  ignorant  and  unsocial  woman  and  a  cat,  Foster  said 
he  felt  he  could  more  easily  make  society  of  the  cat  than 
of  the  woman.  He  characterized  fashionable  worldlings, 
the  hardened  habitues  of  society,  as  "people  who  wor- 
ship Indifference  and  are  proud  of  their  religion."  One 
of  his  sharpest  and  saddest  aphorisms  is  this  :  "  We  are 
interested  only  about  self  or  about  those  who  form  a  part 
of  our  self-interest.  Beyond  all  other  extravagances  of 
folly  is  that  of  expecting  or  wishing  to  live  in  a  great 
number  of  hearts."  It  was  but  natural  that  he  should,  as 
he  did,  fall  back  on  himself,  nature,  and  God,  and  spend 
the  time  in  solitude,  revolving  the  sombre  and  massive 
meditations  out  of  which  his  writings  grew. 


CHANNING. 

WILLIAM  ELLERY  CHANNING  is  one  of  the  most  ex- 
alted and  influential  characters  of  modern  time.  He  is 
a  character  as  distinctly  American  as  Washington,  and 
worthy  to  be  compared  with  him.  For,  if  less  command- 
ingly  conspicuous  and  imposing,  he  is  far  finer,  sweeter, 
more  spiritual,  ideal,  and  religious.  The  average  multi- 
tude of  mankind  live,  by  mechanical  habit,  on  tradition. 
There  are  two  classes  of  great  men  whose  mission  is  by 
their  original  power  and  fire  to  redeem  common  men  from 
their  deathly  passivity,  and  inspire  them  to  newness  of 
living.  First,  the  creative  minds  who  audaciously  cast 
off  the  bonds  of  old  authority,  break  through  the  limits 
of  routine,  and  lay  bare  unheard-of  regions  of  life.  Sec- 
ond, those  less  endowed,  but  equally  inspired  natures, 
who,  staying  for  the  greater  part  by  the  traditions  and 
authorities  honored  in  their  time,  cannot  abide  anything 
lifelessly  formal,  but  must  vitalize  all  they  touch;  repudi- 
ating torpid  conformity,  making  the  old  as  good  as  new 
by  stripping  off  its  bandages  and  breathing  a  soul  under 
its  ribs  of  death.  Channing  belonged  rather  to  this  latter 
class,  though  not  excluded  from  the  other  one.  His  was 


312       SKETCHES  OF  LONELY  CHARACTERS. 

more  the  greatness'  of  balanced  faculties,  sincerity,  pa- 
tience, earnestness,  consecration,  than  that  startling  great- 
ness which,  goaded  to  unparalleled  deeds  by  a  strange 
fire  shut  up  in  its  bones,  despises  trembling  prudence  and 
leaps  into  the  unknown  to  pluck  its  prizes. 

Channing  was  great  by  the  translucency  of  his  large 
and  lofty  mind,  and  by  the  permeating  morality  of  his 
character.  No  mechanical  conformity  could  satisfy  him. 
He  must  see  for  himself,  and  vitalize  all  his  views.  He 
sought  with  patience,  by  many-sided  comparisons  and 
tests,  with  the  aid  of  the  minds  around  him,  to  understand 
subjects  justly.  He  fought  as  a  divine  champion  to  drive 
from  his  own  soul  the  conceit,  ignorance,  delusion,  dead 
traditionality  of  opinion  he  saw  infesting  ordinary  souls, 
and  always  to  live  as  far  as  possible  at  first  hand,  in  gen- 
uine perception,  faith,  and  love.  His  sincerity  and  ear- 
nestness fused  his  powers  in  every  expression,  so  that  he 
acted  as  a  unit  flowing  with  irresistible  fervor  and  momen- 
tum. No  accompaniments  of  his  utterance  created  any 
obstacle  to  its  effect :  his  impression  was  therefore  inte- 
gral, without  those  contradictions  and  jerks  which  take  so 
much  away  from  the  influence  of  many  speakers.  The 
pillars  of  his  being  went  down  to  the  basis  of  primal 
truths,  and  rested,  naked,  alive,  electric,  on  the  moral 
foundations  of  things,  in  contact  with  the  original  sources 
of  inspiration.  Thus,  although  he  was  not  a  great  scholar, 
nor  a  discoverer  of  any  important  thoughts  or  methods, 
he  had  great  originality  of  character.  The  intensely  sus- 
tained action  of  his  faculties  lent  to  the  best  thoughts  and 
sentiments  which  he  derived  from  his  time  new  fire  and 
importance,  and  gave  a  fresh  impulse  towards  their  do- 
minion in  the  breasts  of  others.  If  he  did  not  with  pen- 
etrative intellect  uncover  new  principles  or  provinces,  his 
inspired  contemplation  made  the  commonplace  burn  unto 
the  kindling  of  souls  indifferent  before.  He  is  at  this 
moment  a  creative  moral  influence,  breathing  in  the  liter- 
ature and  life  of  America.  He  is  also  at  this  moment, 
through  translations  of  his  works,  a  high  ethical,  educa- 
tional, liberalizing  influence  in  France,  Germany,  and 
Russia. 


CHANNING.  313 

Channing  was  impressively  separated  throughout  his 
life  from  the  bulk  of  those  around  him  by  the  manifold 
superiority  of  his  soul,  the  greater  quickness  and  richness 
of  his  sensibility,  the  greater  vitality  and  breadth  of  his 
.reason,  the  greater  keenness  and  gravity  of  his  conscience, 
the  greater  force  and  constancy  of  his  aspiration  after  in- 
ternal harmony  and  public  usefulness.  In  early  youth 
he  was  much  given  to  lonely  rambles,  secret  self-commu- 
nion, romantic  reveries,  "seeking  in  unreal  worlds  what 
the  actual  world  could  not  give."  "  Much  of  my  time," 
he  writes,  "  is  thrown  away  in  pursuing  the  phantoms  of  a 
disordered  imagination.  Musing  wears  away  both  my 
body  and  my  mind.  I  walk  without  attending  to  the  dis- 
tance." He  suffered  severely  from  home-sickness.  Re- 
calling it  long  after  he  said  :  "  I  remember  how  my  throat 
seemed  full,  and  food  was  tasteless,  and  the  solitude 
which  I  fled  to  was  utter  loneliness." 

When  he  was  eighteen,  brooding  over  enthusiastic 
dreams  at  once  glorious  and  sad,  he  wrote  to  his  dear 
classmate  Shaw,  "  I  am  sensible  that  my  happy  days  are 
passed,  and  I  can  only  weep  for  them.  My  walks  now 
are  solitary ;  no  friendly  voice  to  cheer  me,  no  congenial 
soul  to  make  a  partner  of  my  joy  or  sorrow.  I  am,  in- 
deed, in  the  midst  of  my  family,  with  the  best  of  mothers, 
brothers,  and  sisters.  But  alas  !  I  have  no  friend."  Soon 
after  this  expression  he  went  as  a  tutor  to  Richmond  in 
Virginia.  Here  is  a  glimpse  of  his  experience,  given  in 
a  letter  to  Shaw  written  at  the  time.  "  I  have  a  retired 
room  for  my  study,  a  lonely  plain  to  walk  in.  I  often 
look  towards  the  North  with  a  sigh,  and  think  of  the 
scenes  I  have  left  behind  me.  But  I  remember  that  cruel 
necessity  has  driven  me  from  home,  and  wipe  away  the 
tear  which  the  painful  recollection  has  wrung  from  ni) 
eyes.  O  heaven  !  what  a  wretch  should  I  be,  how  weari- 
some would  existence  be,  had  I  not  learned  to  depend 
on  myself  for  enjoyment.  Society  becomes  more  and 
more  insipid.  I  am  tired  of  the  fashionable  nonsense 
which  dins  my  ear  on  every  side,  and  am  driven  to  my 
book  and  pen  for  relief.  Nature  or  education  has  given 
this  bent  to  my  mind,  and  I  esteem  it  as  the  richest  bless- 
14 


314       SKETCHES  OF  LONELY  CHARACTERS. 

ing  Heaven  ever  sent  me.  I  am  independent  of  the 
world."  Despite  this  brave  rally,  however,  his  isolation, 
absorption,  stern  abstemiousness,  and  over-toil,  often  de- 
pressed his  spirits ;  and  when,  on  a  Christmas  day,  he 
found  himself  too  meanly  clad  to  join  the  gay  party  in 
another  part  of  the  mansion,  he  felt  a  bitter  blow  of  heart- 
break. 

Forty-three  years  afterwards,  he  thus  reverted  to  those 
hard,  yet  most  fruitful  days  :  "  I  lived  alone,  too  poor  to 
buy  books,  spending  my  days  and  nights  in  an  outbuild- 
ing, with  no  one  beneath  my  roof  except  during  the  hours 
of  school.  There  I  toiled  as  I  have  never  done  since. 
With  not  a  human  being  to  whom  I  could  communicate 
my  deepest  thoughts  and  feelings,  I  passed  through  intel- 
lectual and  moral  conflicts  so  absorbing  as  often  to  banish 
sleep  and  to  destroy  almost  wholly  the  power  of  diges- 
tion. I  was  worn  wellnigh  to  a  skeleton.  Yet  I  look 
back  on  those  days  and  nights  of  loneliness  and  frequent 
gloom  with  thankfulness.  If  I  ever  struggled  with  my 
whole  soul  for  purity,  truth,  and  goodness,  it  was  there. 
There,  amidst  sore  trials,  the  great  question,  I  trust,  was 
settled  within  me,  whether  I  would  obey  the  higher  or 
lower  principles  of  my  nature,  —  whether  I  would  be  the 
victim  of  passion,  or  the  free  child  and  servant  of  God. 
It  is  an  interesting  recollection  that  this  great  conflict 
was  going  on  within  me,  and  my  mind  receiving  its  im- 
pulse towards  the  perfect,  without  a  thought  or  suspicion 
of  one  person  around  me  as  to  what  I  was  experiencing." 

When  twenty-seven  years  of  age,  four  years  after  his 
ordination,  he  wrote  to  one  of  his  friends :  "I  have  a 
strong  propensity  to  lead  the  life  of  a  recluse  and  a  book- 
worm ;  and  perhaps,  if  I  were  able  to  study  all  the  time, 
I  should  neglect  the  active  duties  of  my  profession.  My 
life  is  very  tranquil.  I  will  not  mingle  with  the  conten- 
tions of  the  world.  Angry  politicians  and  theologians  are 
raging  around  me,  but  I  try  not  to  hear."  Dewey,  after 
living  with  Channing  in  his  family,  in  his  mature  age, 
when  he  had  acquired  a  great  fame,  has  thus  described 
him  :  "  He  stood  alone.  I  found  him  embosomed  in 
reverence  and  affection,  and  yet  living  in  a  singular  iso- 


CHANNING.  315 

latijn.  No  being  was  ever  more  simple,  unpretending, 
and  kindly-natured  than  he  ;  and  yet  no  such  being, 
surely,  was  ever  so  inaccessible.  Not  that  he  was  proud, 
but  that  he  was  venerated  as  something  out  of  the  earth- 
ly sphere."  In  his  sixtieth  year,  Channing  said  :  "  I  try 
in  solitude  to  keep  up  my  interest  in  my  fellow-creatures  ; 
and  my  happiness,  when  alone,  is  found  in  labors  for  their 
improvement."  And  he  wrote  to  a  young  friend,  only  a 
few  weeks  before  his  death  :  "  At  the  end  of  life,  I  see 
that  I  have  lived  too  much  by  myself.  I  wish  you  more 
courage,  cordiality,  and  real  union  with  your  race."  Yet 
he  who  said  this  was  a  most  celebrated  preacher  and 
writer,  with  wealth,  an  extensive  correspondence,  a  high 
social  position,  and  crowds  of  admirers.  Even  in  the 
midst  of  an  upgazing  world,  a  mind  of  unusual  strength, 
tenderness,  earnestness  and  consecration,  is  likely  to  be 
alone. 

With  the  prostration  and  pain  of  chronic  ill-health, 
Channing  had  a  nervous  system  in  which  ideas  distrib- 
uted thrills  of  emotion  with  as  much  energy  as  in  others 
objects  distribute  shocks  of  sensation.  While  others 
were  passionately  absorbed  in  the  pursuit  of  money  and 
outward  rank,  or  slothful ly  abandoned  to  pleasure  and 
ease,  he  was  heroically  studying  to  know  the  truth,  exam- 
ining all  sorts  of  opinions  to  sift  out  the  false  and  effete, 
retain  the  real  and  vital.  Others  were  generally  content 
to  tread  a  lifeless  routine  of  conventionality  and  self- 
ignorance  ;  he  toiled  with  burning  devotion  to  advance 
steadily  towards  perfection,  and  to  set  before  others  the 
methods  of  such  a  progress,  both  by  example  and  by  pre- 
cept. With  reference  to  this  end  he  strove  with  unwea- 
ried patience  to  understand  himself,  human  nature,  the 
good  and  ill  of  human  life,  the  laws  of  duty,  as  they  are, 
—  neither  fanatically  exaggerating  the  defects  and  misery, 
nor  idolatrously  heightening  the  gifts  and  deserts,  that 
met  his  gaze. 

Besides  the  distance  resulting  from  these  traits,  he  was 
further  separated  by  the  misunderstanding  and  opposition 
he  experienced  from  unworthy  judges  of  his  character. 
His  immense  self-respect,  his  deliberate  setting  of  hia 


316  SKETCHES   OF   LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

own  conscientious  conviction  above  every  other  authc  r- 
ity,  the  firmness  with  which  he  fell  back  on  his  own 
perceptions  and  feelings,  the  sincerity  with  which  he 
recognized  the  voice  of  God  in  the  sovereign  ideas  and 
sentiments  of  his  soul,  constraining  him  to  express  them 
and  serve  them,  made  his  personality  not  less  odious  to 
some  than  fascinating  to  others.  The  least  worthy  among 
his  associates,  failing  to  distinguish  from  an  ignoble  ego- 
tism his  grand  esteem  for  himself  as  an  accredited  repre- 
sentative of  the  supreme  interests  of  truth  and  humanity, 
were  offended  at  his  saying  so  much  of  his  "  mission,"  his 
"  great  thoughts,"  his  "  sacred  ideas."  The  enemies,  pro- 
voked by  the  high-toned  boldness  with  which  he  rebuked 
the  sins  and  wrongs  he  recognized,  assailed  him  with 
anonymous  letters,  with  outrageous  imputations  of  bad 
motives.  And  when  he  poured  forth  in  inspired  strains 
the  fulness  of  his  soul  on  the  godlike  worth  of  human 
nature,  and  the  future  glory  of  human  destinies,  he  was 
laughed  at  as  a  wild  dreamer.  "  These  ideas  are  treated," 
he  remonstrates,  "  as  a  kind  of  spiritual  romance ;  and 
the  teacher  who  really  expects  men  to  see  in  themselves 
and  one  another  the  children  of  God,  is  smiled  at  as  a 
visionary.  The  reception  of  this  plainest  truth  of  Chris- 
tianity would  revolutionize  society,  and  create  relations 
among  men  not  dreamed  of  at  the  present  day.  A  union 
would  spring  up,  compared  with  which  our  present  friend- 
ships would  seem  estrangements.  Men  would  know  the 
import  of  the  word  Brother."  Yet,  notwithstanding  the 
combined  force  of  these  influences  to  chill,  alienate,  and 
depress,  he  grew  ever  calmer  and  happier  in  his  faith  in 
men,  and  love  of  nature,  and  enjoyment  of  life,  and  said  ' 
his  last  year  was  the  dearest  of  all  he  had  known. 

With  the  isolating  characteristics  by  which  he  was 
marked,  characteristics  which  have  led  so  many  superior 
souls  to  scornful  withdrawal  and  bitter  wretchedness,  it  is 
an  important  inquiry  how  Channing  managed  to  keep 
himself  interested  and  happy.  In  the  first  place,  he  early 
formed  the  blessed  habit  of  meditating  on  the  divine 
aspects  of  nature,  man,  and  society,  in  preference  to  dwell- 
ing on  their  dark  and  distressful  aspects.  The  glory  of 


CHANNING.  317 

the  attributes  of  God,  the  inspiration  of  disinterestedness, 
the  privilege  of  existing  in  a  universe  of  progressive  order 
and  beauty,  the  blissful  freedom  and  grandeur  of  self- 
sacrifice,  the  vision  of  a  perfect  society  yet  to  be  realized 
on  earth,  the  boundless  possibilities  in  the  destiny  of  the 
soul,  —  an  assimilating  communion  with  such  themes  as 
these  fed  the  fountains  of  his  life  always  with  strength, 
and  often  with  rapture.  At  one  time  he  was  so  wrought 
up  by  his  convictions  of  the  dignity  of  human  nature  and 
(he  promises  of  universal  good,  that,  as  he  afterwards 
described  the  experience  to  a  friend,  "  I  longed  to  die, 
feeling  as  if  heaven  alone  could  give  room  for  the  ex- 
ercise of  such  emotions ;  but  when  I  found  I  must  live, 
I  cast  about  to  do  something  worthy  of  these  great 
thoughts." 

That  he  suffered  much  from  lack  of  satisfying  fellow- 
ship, cannot  be  concealed.  Hear  his  own  confession,  as 
romantic  as  though  written  by  the  fiery  enthusiast  of  Lake 
Leman,  instead  of  by  a  Puritan  of  cold  New  England  : 
"  My  whole  life  has  been  a  struggle  with  my  feelings.  I 
walk  and  muse  till  I  can  walk  no  longer.  I  sit  down  with 
Goldsmith  or  Rogers  in  my  hand,  and  shed  tears  —  at 
what  ?  At  fictitious  misery.  Ask  those  with  whom  I 
have  lived  and  they  will  tell  you  that  I  am  a  stoic.  But 
I  only  smothered  a  fire  which  will  one  day  consume  me. 
I  sigh  for  tranquil  happiness  ;  but  still  continue  sanguine, 
ardent,  inconstant.  One  reason  why  I  now  dislike  the 
rapture  and  the  depression  which  I  formerly  encouraged, 
is  probably  this :  I  find  none  to  share  them  with  me." 
Again,  he  writes  :  —  "I  often  want  faith  in  the  sympathy 
of  individuals  with  whom  I  converse,  and  shrink  from 
expressing  the  truth,  lest  it  should  meet  no  response. 
This  I  am  trying  to  overcome."  We  cannot  help  suspect- 
ing that  his  own  isolation  quickened  his  sympathetic  per- 
ception of  instances  of  solitude,  when  we  find  him,  during 
his  voyage  to  Europe,  noting  in  his  journal :  —  "  The  sight 
of  the  sea-bird  struck  me  with  its  loneliness.  I  thought 
of  its  spending  its  night  on  the  ocean.  But  I  remembered 
that  it  had  no  home  to  forget." 

Channing,  with  all  the  sickness,  pain,  ideal  sorrow,  ex- 


318  SKETCHES   OF    LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

treme  sensitiveness  and  intellectuality,  which  have  led  a 
host  of  gifted  men  to  misanthropy  and  despair,  never 
became  conceited  or  sour,  but  won  the  victory  because 
he  paid  the  price  of  the  victory  in  perseveringly  observ- 
ing its  conditions.  He  kept  a  holy  watch  over  his  own 
tendencies,  and  adjusted  them  to  the  sober  standards  of 
virtue.  He  was,  in  his  own  words,  "  too  wise  to  waste 
in  idle  lamentations  over  deficiencies  the  energy  which 
should  be  used  in  removing  them."  How  weighty  in 
moral  wisdom  and  valor  is  the  following  passage  :  —  "I 
can  remember  the  days  when  I  gloried  in  the  moments 
of  rapture,  when  I  loved  to  shroud  myself  in  the  gloom 
of  melancholy.  But  I  have  grown  wiser  as  I  have  grown 
older.  I  now  wish  to  do  good  in  the  world,  and  must 
throw  away  these  ridiculous  ecstasies,  and  form  myself 
to  habits  of  piety  and  benevolence.  The  other  day  I 
handed  to  a  lady  a  sonnet  of  Southey's,  which  had  wrung 
tears  from  me.  '  It  is  pretty,'  said  she,  with  a  smile. 
'  Pretty  ! '  echoed  I,  as  1  looked  at  her.  '  Pretty  ! '  I 
went  home.  As  I  grew  composed  I  could  not  help  re- 
flecting that  the  lady  who  had  made  this  answer  was  uni- 
versally esteemed  for  her  benevolence.  I  knew  that  she 
was  goodness  itself;  but  still  she  wanted  feeling.  And 
what  is  feeling  ?  I  blushed  to  find,  when  I  thought  more 
on  the  subject,  that  the  mind  was  just  as  passive  in  that 
state  which  I  called  '  feeling'  as  when  it  received  any  im- 
pressions of  sense.  One  consequence  immediately  struck 
me ;  that  there  was  no  moral  merit  in  possessing  feeling, 
and,  of  course,  no  crime  in  wanting  it." 

The  growing  depth  and  serenity  of  Channing's  happi- 
ness were  the  reward  of  his  wisdom  and  virtue  both  in 
relation  to  society  and  to  himself.  The  great  standard 
of  association  ready  to  link  itself  with  every  state  of  con- 
sciousness that  arose  in  him,  was  the  divine  set  of  prin- 
ciples inwrought  by  God  with  the  structure  of  humanity 
and  destined  at  last  to  harmonize  all  things  with  them- 
selves. This  was  an  unfailing  spring  of  comfort  and 
power.  He  says,  referring  to  this  mode  of  thought,  "  I 
feel  a  noble  enthusiasm  spreading  through  my  frame ; 
every  nerve  is  strung,  every  muscle  is  laboring ;  my 


CHANNING.  3ig 

bosom  pants  with  a  great,  half-conceived  and  indescrib- 
able sentiment ;  I  seem  inspired  with  a  surrounding 
deity."  He  associated  the  idea  of  the  race  with  the 
person  of  the  individual,  saw  the  essence  and  glory  of 
the  whole  in  each  of  the  parts.  He  felt  this  with  such 
extraordinary  vividness,  spoke  and  wrote  it  with  such  an 
iterated  eloquence  of  sincerity,  as  really  to  diffuse  around 
him  a  new  impulse  to  the  philanthropy  of  the  age  ;  —  as 
high  a  moral  benefit,  as  pure  a  religious  service,  as  can 
be  rendered  to  men  by  a  man.  This  is  the  noble  and 
healthy  opposite  of  the  habit  exemplified  by  such  morbid 
characters  as  Pascal,  Leopardi,  Schopenhauer,  whose 
trains  of  meditations  always  fly  to  the  dark  ideas  of  the 
wickedness,  weakness,  wretchedness  of  our  nature  and 
state,  and  thus  cause  each  successive  thought  to  deposit  a 
new  layer  of  melancholy. 

Channing  illustrates  another  felicitous  contrast  to  the 
habit  of  these  unhappy  men,  in  his  treatment  and  regard 
of  himself.  No  one  can  rationally  expect  other  men  to 
think  as  much  of  him,  estimate  him  as  highly,  love  him 
as  warmly,  as  he  desires  to  be  thought  of,  estimated,  and 
loved.  Each  one  is  too  much  occupied  at  home,  has  not 
time  or  force  enough,  even  if  he  had  inclination,  to  do 
this.  Each  can  give  nearly  all  to  the  whole ;  the  whole 
could  not,  without  universal  destruction,  give  more  than  a 
little  to  each.  Accordingly  those  whose  happiness  de- 
pends on  their  seeing  themselves  reflected  in  the  minds 
of  others,  in  lights  sufficiently  flattering  to  minister  to 
their  vanity  and  ambition,  must  be,  as  a  general  rule, 
prevailingly  unhappy.  He  alone  can  have  a  stable  and 
increasing  happiness,  who,  trying  faithfully  to  do  his  duty, 
is  content  with  the  approval  of  God  and  his  own  con- 
science, by  the  intrinsic  standards  of  what  is  right  and 
good.  All  men  who,  like  Petrarch,  Rousseau,  Byron, 
sensitively  refer  to  their  self-reflections  in  the  judgments 
of  others,  are  miserable ;  for  their  pride  topples,  their 
complacency  is  destroyed  by  stinging  disappointments, 
either  real  or  fanciful.  But  men  of  the  Dante,Jhe  Fene- 
lon,  or  the  Wordsworth  stamp,  who  esteem  themselves, 
not  indirectly  through  the  figures  they  make,  in  other  peo 


32O  SKETCHES   OF   LONELY    CHARACTERS. 

pie's  imaginations,  but  directly  by  the  divine  authorities  to 
which  they  bow,  the  sublime  ideals  to  which  they  are  loyal, 
the  boundless  and  everlasting  good  which  they  appreciate, 
are  possessed  of  an  immovable  content.  Channing  was 
of  these.  He  was  devoted,  whether  in  company  or  alone, 
not  to  pampering,  but  to  perfecting,  himself.  On  this  base 
his  self-respect  stood  firmly.  "  The  true  tone  of  virtue," 
he  says,  "  is  the  tone  of  conscious  superiority,  calm,  ex- 
pressive of  unaffected  dignity,  strong  in  itself,  and  there- 
fore not  disturbed  by  clamors."  "  My  own  opinion  of 
what  I  publish  is  not  at  all  affected  by  the  general  recep- 
tion it  meets  with  ;  but  if  no  souls  are  reached,  there  is 
cause  of  distrust."  "  I  like  to  know  the  evil  that  is  said 
of  me,  because  much  of  it  may  be  traced  to  misapprehen- 
sion, and  because  sometimes  part  of  it  has  a  foundation 
in  real  defects  of  character,  and  may  be  used  lor  self- 
knowledge  and  self-reform."  From  all  painful  wrongs, 
injurious  reports,  sympathetic  woes,  he  had  delicious  re- 
treats and  cures  in  his  Christ-like  ideas,  sentiments,  and 
efforts.  He  says  in  one  of  his  own  choice  sentences, 
sweet  and  high,  "  We  visionaries,  as  we  are  called,  have 
this  privilege  from  living  in  the  air,  that  the  harsh  sounds 
from  the  earth  make  only  a  slight  impression  on  the  ear." 
To  lose  self-respect  is  to  touch  the  bottom  at  the  same 
time  of  degradation  and  of  misery.  He  who  is  upheld 
by  a  sound  self-respect  may  be  calm  and  happy  even  in 
the  midst  of  a  thousand  trials. 

Channing  was  a  lonely  man,  but  he  wisely  shunned 
most  of  the  evils  and  nobly  gained  all  the  benefits  of 
solitude.  Laboring  to  perfect  himself,  he  disinterestedly 
served  his  fellow-men,  resolutely  sought  truth,  and  humbly 
worshipped  God.  In  this  manner  he  neutralized  misery 
and  was  happy  to  the  end,  exerting  a  noble  influence  and 
setting  a  redemptive  example,  an  influence  and  example 
which  the  expansion  of  his  pure  fame  promises  to  diffuse 
and  perpetuate.  He  is  one  of  the  few  men  who  make  us 
mend  our  idea  of  man. 


ROBERTSON.  32! 


ROBERTSON. 

ONE  of  the  bravest  confessors  of  our  age  was  the 
noble  English  preacher,  Frederick  William  Robertson. 
Although  his  eloquence  brought  him  much  publicity,  and 
his  charming  qualities  of  character  made  him  warmly 
beloved  by  many  friends,  and  his  extreme  fidelity  to  his 
professional  duties  kept  him  busy  both  in  his  library  and 
with  people,  he  lived,  as  to  the  inner  man,  in  a  trying 
solitude.  The  rare  tenderness  of  his  spirit,  the  uncom- 
mon capacity  and  earnestness  of  his  mind,  his  heroic 
loyalty  in  the  pursuit  of  truth,  his  extraordinary  breadth 
of  perception  and  catholicity  of  temper,  removed  him 
quite  out  of  the  range  of  vulgar  natures,  and  made  him 
an  object  of  suspicion  and  hate  to  partisans  and  bigots. 
He  paid  in  sorrowful  irritation  and  suffering  the  penalty 
of  his  exquisite  sensitiveness  and  his  unflinching  courage. 
What  a  glimpse  the  following  sentence  opens  into  his  life : 
"  I  am  sometimes  tempted  to  doubt  whether  any  one  who 
tries  to  open  people's  eyes  in  science,  politics,  or  religion 
is  to  be  reckoned  as  a  martyr  or  a  fool.  The  cross  ?  Or 
the  cap  and  bells?" 

When  in  Switzerland  he  wrote  home  to  his  wife,  "I 
cannot  tell  you  how  the  love  of  solitude  has  grown  upon 
me.  I  can  enjoy  these  mountains,  with  their  sombre 
pine-woods  and  their  wild  sights  and  sounds,  only  when 
I  am  alone."  At  another  time,  with  a  noble  depth  of 
pathos  and  of  thought,  he  writes  :  "  I  am  alone,  lonelier 
than  ever, — sympathized  with  by  none,  because  I  sympathize 
too  much  with  all.  But  the  All  sympathizes  with  me.  A 
sublime  feeling  of  a  Presence  comes  upon  me  at  times, 
which  makes  inward  solitariness  a  trifle  to  talk  about."  Yet, 
despite  such  divine  compensation,  to  such  a  soul  a  loving 
society,  and  not  a  compulsory  solitude,  was  the  genuine 
atmosphere  of  enjoyment.  He  said,  "  Sympathy  is  too 
exquisitely  dear  to  me  to  resist  the  temptation  of  expect- 
ing it ;  and  then  I  could  bite  my  tongue  with  vexation  for 
having  babbled  out  truths  too  sincere  and  childlike  to  be 
intelligible.  But  as  soon  as  the  fit  of  misanthropy  is 
14*  u 


322       SKETCHES  OF  LONELY  CHARACTERS. 

passed,  that  absurd  human  heart  with  which  I  live,  trusts 
and  confides  again.  Yet,  yet,  say  what  I  will,  —  when 
any  one  soothes  me  with  the  semblance  of  sympathy,  I 
cannot  for  the  life  of  me  help  baring  my  whole  bosom  in 
giatitude  and  trust." 

It  was  the  too  natural  sequel  of  such  extreme  fondness 
that,  after  repeated  experiences  of  unfairness  and  unkind- 
ness,  from  natures  so  far  inferior  as  to  be  incapable  of 
appreciating  and  responding  to  him  in  his  own  kind,  he 
should,  in  final  revulsion  of  pain,  say  :  "  I  am  resolved 
now  to  act,  and  feel,  and  think,  alone."  It  is  doubly 
melancholy  to  remember  the  cruel  wrong  he  suffered 
when  we  recall  the  revelation  of  its  painfulness  which 
he  left  on  record.  "Unless  a  man,"  he  says,  "has  a 
skin  like  a  rhinoceros,  and  a  heart  like  a  stone-fruit,  it  is 
no  easy  thing  to  work  alone.  The  bad  feelings  of  pride 
or  vanity  get  as  little  to  feed  them  in  such  a  struggle  as 
the  better  ones  of  sympathy  and  charity.  Elijah,  stern 
and  iron  as  he  was,  should  be  a  warning  to  any  common 
man  to  expect  that  many  a  day  he  will  have  to  sit  under 
his  juniper-tree  in  despondency  and  bitter  sense  of  iso- 
lation and  uselessness." 

Robertson  was  a  man  of  the  extremest  refinement  and 
purity  of  heart.  In  the  most  vivid  sense  of  the  phrase, 
he  was  a  soldier  of  Christ.  His  loyalties  and  reverences 
were  surpassingly  quick  and  deep.  He  was  a  true  incar- 
nation of  chivalry ;  his  elastic  vigor  of  nerve  making  his 
steps  spurn  the  earth  as  he  walked,  his  inspired  imagi- 
nation spreading  over  all  the  moral  interests  of  humanity  a 
web  of  associations  sensitive  to  pleasure  and  pain  through 
its  whole  extent.  His  noble  courage,  both  physical  and 
moral,  was  as  supreme  as  his  consecration.  Whenever 
he  spoke  of  battle  his  lips  quivered,  his  eyes  flashed,  his 
voice  shook.  A  soldier's  son,  he  was  rocked  and  cradled 
amidst  military  sights  and  sounds ;  and,  to  the  last,  as  he 
himself  said,  he  could  not.see  a  review  without  being  im- 
pressed to  tears,  nor  look  on  the  evolutions  of  cavalry 
without  a  choking  sensation.  He  turned  with  loathing 
from  the  crooked  policies,  petty  reticences,  clinging  scan- 
dals, and  bigoted  denunciations  of  Evangelical  and  Tract- 


ROBERTSON.  323 

anan  controversies,  of  High  and  Low  Church  parties,  and, 
flinging  off  their  constraint,  with  a  sense  of  measureless 
relief,  wished  "  to  die  sword  in  hand  against  a  French  in- 
vader." 

He  was  unhappy.  The  loss  of  health,  the  development 
of  a  morbid  sensitiveness,  together  with  his  experience  of 
the  ignobleness  of  many  men,  the  deceitfulness,  envious 
hate  and  vulgarity  forced  on  his  notice,  made  him  un- 
happy. Had  he  been  less  pure  and  holy,  had  he  been 
meaner  and  colder,  he  would  not  have  suffered  as  he  did. 
The  essence  of  chivalry,  the  honor  of  the  true  soldier, 
existed  in  him  with  extraordinary  power  and  keenness. 
Chivalry  is  Hie  ordering  of  conduct  and  the  judging  of 
ourselves  by  the  highest  standards  of  duty  and  sentiment 
reflected  by  our  imagination  in  the  minds  of  others.  We 
act  and  estimate  our  acts,  when  we  are  truly  chivalrous, 
not  in  the  direct  light  of  our  own  conscience  alone,  but 
by  the  most  disinterested  code  of  moral  right  and  beauty, 
which  we  conceive  as  enthroned  in  the  minds  of  our  fellow 
men.  Ideally  subjecting  himself  to  this  exalted  tribu- 
nal, Robertson  found  judgments  continually  pronounced, 
whose  foul  selfishness  on  the  one  side,  whose  cruel  injus- 
tice on  the  other,  disgusted  and  distressed  him.  One  of 
his  constitutional  traits  was  a  habit  of  self-depreciation. 
He  underestimated  himself  and  his  deserts.  This  was 
owing  to  the  strength  of  his  perception  of  the  standards 
of  perfection,  the  models  of  success,  and  to  the  sharpness 
of  his  feeling  of  his  shortcomings  when  tried  by  these. 
Superiority  to  the  averages  of  attainment  gives  common 
natures  an  assured  self-complacency  that  makes  them 
happy. 

To  a  fine  and  lofty  soul  the  failure  to  reach  what  it 
aspires  to  is  constantly  depressing,  and  when  such  a  soul 
looks  down  on  the  inferior  averages,  the  superiority  to 
them  which  would  elate  vulgar  aspirants  only  stings  it 
with  double  shame.  It  looks  up  to  its  baffling  ideal,  and 
despairs  ;  looks  down  on  the  degraded  contentment,  and 
loathes.  Such  a  soul  was  that  of  Robertson.  He  was 
high-spirited,  with  an  immense  self-respect,  yet  modest, 
sensitive,  easily  depressed.  He  always  regarded  the  ten- 


324  SKETCHES   OF   LONELT   CHARACTERS. 

dency  to  sink  back  in  a  self-complacent  peace  on  a  feeling 
of  superiority  to  the  moral  exactions  of  public  opinion 
as  the  worst  temptation  of  the  Devil.  He  resisted  this 
temptation  as  he  would  a  profanation  of  the  very  shrine 
of  conscience,  the  deadliest  contamination  of  the  soul. 
This  is  the  key  which  explains,  in  a  manner  perfectly 
consistent  with  his  sweet  sincerity  of  Christian  charity, 
those  violent  reactions  and  expressions  which  seem  at 
first  glance  to  be  almost  bitterly  misanthropic,  —  his  dis- 
like of  popularity,  his  abhorrence  of  the  reputation  of 
being  a  popular  preacher,  his  resentful  condemnation  of 
some  styles  of  English  orthodoxy.  "Would  to  God  I 
were  not  a  mere  pepper-cruet,  to  give  a  relish  to  the 
palates  of  the  Brightonians  !  "  "  The  popular  religion 
represents  only  the  female  element  in  the  national  mind, 
at  once  devotional,  slanderous,  timid,  gossiping,  narrow, 
shrieking,  and.  prudish." 

In  spite  of  such  apparent  self-reliance  and  severity, 
the  strength  and  genuine  catholicity  of  his  sympathies 
made  him  solitary,  made  him  feel  a  pining  lack  of  the  co- 
operative esteem  and  the  kindred  aspirations  of  others. 
"  Friendly  looks  and  kind  deeds,"  he  says,  "  stir  into 
health  that  sour,  rancid  film  of  misanthropy  apt  to  co- 
agulate on  the  stream  of  our  inward  life  if  we  live  in 
heart  apart  from  our  fellow-creatures."  He  knew  many 
and  many  an  hour  of  painful  humility,  loneliness,  and 
melancholy.  Alas !  like  so  many  gallant  and  spotless 
souls  before,  while  he  lived  he  was  persecuted,  his  ex- 
perience embittered,  and  his  days  shortened  by  misrepre- 
sentation, contumely,  and  hardship.  He  died  under  a 
cloud  of  excruciating  pain,  but  with  a  clear  conscience 
and  triumphant  trust.  After  his  death  came  a  harvest 
of  admiration,  grateful  love,  and  fruitful  influence. 


CHOPIN. 

THE  Life  of  Chopin,  by  his  friend  Liszt,  is  a  work  oi 
rare  interest,  as  an  example  of  a  nob^e  friendship,  a?  an 
acute  and  powerful  psychological  portraiture  of  an  <jx 


CHOPIN.  325 

traordimvy  genius,  and  as  a  revelation  of  that  wonderful 
world  of  emotion  in  which  the  souls  of  great  musicians 
live.  The  intense  fineness  and  ardor  of  Chopin's  imag- 
ination, the  violence  of  his  feelings,  his  sickly  and  irri- 
table constitution,  his  exiled  lot,  his  secretive  pride,  his 
subtle  originality  of  mind  and  sentiment,  the  lofty  ear- 
nestness of  his  aims,  and  his  fastidious  purity,  made  his 
experience  one  of  bitter  contrasts,  unhappy  and  lonely. 
Sheathed  in  manners  of  kind  and  tranquil  courtesy,  which 
covered  his  convulsive  soul  as  slopes  of  verdure  and  vine 
cover  a  volcano,  he  moved  among  men  separate  from 
them,  reading  the  secrets  of  all,  never  baring  his  own. 

He  veiled  his  sufferings  under  the  impenetrable  calm- 
ness of  a  proud  resignation  that  scorned  either  to  utter 
complaints  or  to  make  demands.  He  strictly  excluded 
from  conversation  all  subjects  relating  to  himself,  care- 
fully keeping  others  in  the  circle  of  their  own  interests 
lest  they  should  intrude  into  his.  He  was  apparently  so 
free  from  self-occupation  that  people  thought  him  absorb- 
ingly interested  in  them.  Accordingly,  he  gave  much 
pleasure  but  awakened  little  curiosity.  "  His  personality 
remained  intact,  unapproachable  under  the  polished  sur- 
face on  which  it  was  impossible  to  gain  footing."  Ex- 
cluded by  his  infirm  health  from  the  ordinary  arena, 
where  "  a  few  bees  with  many  wasps  expend  their  strength 
in  useless  buzzing,  he  built  a  secluded  cell  for  himself, 
apart  from  all  noisy  and  frequented  ways."  He  never 
suffered  the  world  to  suspect  the  secret  convulsions  that 
agitated  him,  never  unveiled  the  shudder  caused  by  the 
contact  of  more  positive  and  reckless  individualities  with 
his  own.  His  caustic  perception  caught  the  ridiculous 
both  on  the  surface  and  in  the  depth,  and  he  could  easily 
hide  within  or  repel  without  whatever  he  wished  to  hide 
or  repel,  by  gay  mystification  or  satirical  raillery.  No 
ennui  annoyed  him,  because  he  expected  no  interest.  Yet 
this  unsuspected  absence  of  his  soul  from  the  outward 
scene,  this  dense  concealment  of  his  real  life,  arose  not 
from  any  shallow  apathy  or  poverty  of  being,  but  in  truth 
from  the  haughty  royalty  of  his  wants,  the  inconceivable 
susceptibility  of  his  soul  to  hurts. 


326  SKETCHES    OF   LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

"He  constantly  reminded  us,"  Liszt  says,  "of  a  convol- 
vulus balancing  its  heaven-colored  cup  on  an  incredibly 
slight  stem,  the  tissue  of  which  is  so  like  vapor  that  the 
slightest  contact  wounds  and  tears  the  misty  corolla." 
Conscious  of  the  uselessness  of  his  vivid  indignation  and 
vexation,  and  too  jealous  of  the  mysteries  of  his  emo- 
tions to  betray  them,  he  sought  strength  in  isolation  and 
self-control,  and,  "by  dint  of  constant  effort,  subjected 
his  sensibilities,  in  spite  of  their  tormenting  acuteness,  to 
the  rule  of  what  ought  to  be,  rather  than  of  what  is." 
Shrinking  from  the  world  and  the  crowd,  with  the  mystic 
richness  of  his  fancy,  and  a  bleeding  sensitiveness  of  for- 
lorn feeling,  he  had  one  charmed  resource,  —  music.  "  In 
his  compositions  he  collected,  like  tears  in  a  lachrymatory, 
the  memories  of  his  youth,  the  passions  and  dreams  of 
his  country,  the  affections  of  his  heart,  the  mysteries 
of  his  desires,  the  secrets  of  his  sorrows."  "  What  the 
pious  never  say  except  on  their  knees,  in  communion  with 
God,  he  said  in  his  palpitating  compositions,  uttering  in 
the  language  of  tones  those  mysteries  of  emotion  which 
man  is  permitted  to  understand  without  words,  because 
no  words  can  utter  them.  He  was  a  tone-poet.  He 
seemed  to  live  upon  music,  the  moody  food  of  imagina- 
tion. All  the  elegiac  tenderness,  passionate  coquetry, 
martial  heroism,  and  profound  melancholy  of  the  Polish 
nationality,  echoed  from  his  soul,  breathe  in  his  strains. 

He  knew  that  he  could  not  warm  and  move  "  the  mul- 
titude, which  is  like  a  sea  of  lead."  The  public  intimi- 
dated and  paralyzed  him.  But  his  magic  performance 
electrified  the  select  audiences  to  whom  he  revealed  the 
secrets  his  delicate  genius  had  caught  from  "  those  re- 
served yet  impassioned  hearts  which  resemble  that  plant 
so  full  of  burning  life  that  its  flowers  are  always  sur- 
rounded by  a  subtle  and  inflammable  gas."  Liszt  com- 
pares the  ineffably  poetic  fascination  of  Chopin's  playing 
to  the  perfume  of  the  Ethiopian  calla,  which  refuses  to 
diffuse  its  aroma  in  the  breath  of  crowds,  whose  heavy  air 
can  retain  only  the  strong  odor  of  the  tuberose,  the  in- 
cense of  burning  resin.  His  friendly  biographer  thinks 
his  abnegation  of  popular  applause  veiled  an  internal 


CHOPIN.  327 

wound.  He  was  perfectly  aware  of  his  own  superiority  ; 
it  did  not  receive  sufficient  reverberation  to  assure  him 
that  he  was  appreciated. 

A  gnawing  discontent,  scarcely  understood  by  himself, 
secretly  undermined  him.  "The  praise.to  which  he  was 
justly  entitled  not  reaching  him  in  mass,  isolated  com- 
mendations wounded  him.  This  was  evident  from  the 
polished  phrases  with  which  he  shook  such  commenda- 
tions off,  like  troublesome  dust,"  making  it  clear  that  he 
preferred  to  be  left  undisturbed  in  the  enjoyment  of  his 
solitary  feelings.  "  The  joys,  the  consolations  which  the 
creations  of  true  art  awaken  in  the  weary,  suffering, 
believing  hearts  to  whom  they  are  dedicated,  are  des- 
tined to  be  borne  into  far  countries  and  distant  years 
by  the  sacred  works  of  Chopin.  He  could  not  labor  to 
attract  auditors  and  to  please  them  at  whatever  sacrifice." 
He  aimed  to  leave  a  celestial  and  eternal  echo  of  the 
emotions  of  his  soul.  "  What  are  the  fading  bouquets 
of  an  hour  to  those  whose  brows  claim  the  laurel  of  im- 
mortality?" If  he  could  not  have  from  men  all  he  de 
served  and  wanted,  he  would  have  nothing  from  them,  — 
nothing  except  love  and  kindness  from  his  chosen  friends. 
He  would  build  his  hopes  in  God,  wreak  his  soul  in  art, 
and  leave  his  fame  to  time. 

Repeatedly,  Chopin  seemed  for  months  to  be  in  a  dying 
state,  when  he  would  rally,  as  by  some  surprising  volition. 
In  such  ethereal  natures  imagination  is  almost  omnipo- 
tent, and  through  its  fixed  ideas,  its  magnetic  centres  of 
association,  works  miracles.  Twelve  years  before  his 
death  he  started  for  Italy  in  such  a  condition  that  the 
hotel-keepers  demanded  pay  for  the  bed  and  mattress 
that  he  used,  that  they  might  be  burned.  Yet  the  winter 
that  he  then  spent  on  the  Island  of  Majorca,  under  the 
ministrations  of  natural  beauty  and  a  sleepless  love, 
wrought  on  him  with  a  strange  efficacy  of  restoration. 
His  biographer  becomes  a  poet  in  describing  this  en- 
chanted oasis  in  the  existence  of  the  Polish  composer. 
"In  this  solitude,  shaded  by  groves  of  oranges,  and  sur- 
rounded by  the  blue  waves  of  the  Mediterranean,  he 
breathed  that  air  for  which  natures  unsuited  to  the  world 


328       SKETCHES  OF  LONELY  CHARACTERS. 

and  never  feeling  themselves  happy  in  it  long  with  such  a 
painful  homesickness ;  that  air  which  may  be  found  every- 
where, if  we  can  find  the  sympathetic  souls  to  breathe  it 
with  us,  and  which  is  to  be  met  nowhere  without  them,  — 
the  air  of  the  land  of  our  dreams,  of  the  country  of  the 
ideal."  The  story  of  this  bewitching  residence  is  described 
by  Madame  Sand  in  "  Lucre^ia  Floriani,"  with  all  the 
empassioned  gorgeousness  of  her  art :  she  herself  is  La 
Floriani ;  Chopin  is  Prince  Karol,  and  Liszt  is  Count 
Albani. 

At  length,  after  a  fatal  rupture  of  affection,  an  agony 
worse  than  death,  by  a  lingering  decline  not  fuller  of  pain 
and  sadness  than  of  beauty  and  majesty,  the  long  tragedy 
of  life  drew  to  a  close  ;  the  lacerating  conflict  of  the  outer 
and  the  inner  life,  so  successfully  shrouded  under  that  de- 
meanor of  tranquil  politeness,  was  to  find  relief.  The 
noblest  of  his  Polish  countrymen,  the  loveliest  of  his 
countrywomen,  idolatrous  friends,  were  unremitting  in 
their  attentions.  One  evening  near  his  end,  at  sunset, 
he  saw  the  beautiful  Countess  Potocka,  draped  in  white, 
weeping,  at  the  foot  of  his  bed.  "  Sing,"  he  murmured. 
Amidst  the  hushed  group  of  friends,  the  rays  of  the  set- 
ting sun  streaming  upon  them,  she  sang  with  her  own  ex- 
quisite sweetness  the  famous  canticle  to  the  Virgin  which 
once  saved  the  life  of  Stradella.  "  How  beautiful  it  is  ! 
My  God,  how  beautiful !  "  sighed  the  dying  artist.  None 
of  those  who  approached  the  dying  Chopin  "  could  tear 
themselves  from  the  spectacle  of  this  great  and  gifted 
soul  in  his  hours  of  mortal  anguish."  Whispering  "Who 
is  near  me,"  he  was  told,  Gutman,  —  the  favorite  pupil 
who  had  watched  by  him  with  romantic  devotion.  He 
bent  his  head  to  kiss  the  faithful  hand,  and  died  in  this 
act  of  love. 

They  buried  the  room  in  flowers.  The  serene  loveli- 
ness of  youth,  so  long  dimmed  by  grief  and  pain,  came 
back,  and  he  lay  there  smiling,  as  if  asleep  in  a  garden 
of  roses.  At  the  farewell  service  in  the  Madeleine  Church, 
his  own  Funeral  March  and  the  Requiem  of  Mozart  were 
performed.  Lablache,  who  had  sung  the  supernatural  Tuba 
Mirum  of  this  Requiem  at  the  burial  of  Beethoven,  twenty 


THOREAU.  329 

two  years  before,  now  sang  it  again.  In  the  cemetery  of 
Pere  la  Chaise,  under  a  chaste  tomb  surmounted  by  his 
own  marble  likeness,  between  the  monuments  of  Bellini 
and  Cherubini,  where  he  had  asked  to  be  laid,  sleeps  the 
hapless  musician,  whose  weird  and  solemn  strains  are 
worthy  to  carry  his  name  into  future  ages  as  long  as  men 
shall  continue  to  contemplate  the  mysterious  changes  of 
time  and  the  mute  entrance  of  eternity. 


THOREAU. 

IF  any  American  deserves  to  stand  as  a  representative  of 
the  experience  of  recluseness,  Thoreau  is  the  man.  His 
fellow-feelings  and  alliances  with  men  were  few  and  feeble ; 
his  disgusts  and  aversions  many,  as  well  as  strongly  pro- 
nounced. All  his  life  he  was  distinguished  for  his  aloof- 
ness, austere  self-communion,  long  and  lonely  walks.  He 
was  separated  from  ordinary  persons  in  grain  and  habits, 
by  the  poetic  sincerity  of  his  passion  for  natural  objects 
and  phenomena.  As  a  student  and  lover  of  the  material 
world  he  is  a  genuine  apostle  of  solitude,  despite  the  taints 
ofaffectation,  inconsistency,  and  morbidity  which  his  writ- 
ings betray.  At  twenty-eight,  on  the  shore  of  a  lonely  pond, 
he  built  a  hut  in  which  he  lived  entirely  by  himself  for 
over  two  years.  And,  after  he  returned  to  his  father's 
house  in  the  village,  he  was  for  the  chief  part  of  the  time 
nearly  as  much  alone  as  he  had  been  in  his  hermitage  by 
"Walden  water.  The  closeness  of  his  cleaving  to  the  land- 
scape cannot  be  questioned  :  "I  dream  of  looking  abroad, 
summer  and  winter,  with  free  gaze,  from  some  mountain 
side,  nature  looking  into  nature,  with  such  easy  sympathy 
as  the  blue-eyed  grass  in  the  meadow  looks  in  the  face  of 
the  sky."  When  he  describes  natural  scenes,  his  hear'' 
lends  a  sweet  charm  to  the  pages  he  pens  :  "  Paddling  up 
the  river  to  Fair-Haven  Pond,  as  the  sun  went  down,  I 
saw  a  solitary  boatman  disporting  on  the  smooth  lake. 
The  falling  dews  seemed  to  strain  and  purify  the  air,  and 
I  was  soothed  with  an  infinite  stillness.  I  got  the  world, 
as  it  were,  by  the  nape  of  the  neck,  and  held  it  under,  in 


33°  SKETCHES   OF    LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

the  tide  of  its  own  events,  till  it  was  drowned  ;  and  then 
I  let  it  go  down  stream  like  a  dead  dog.  Vast,  hollow 
chambers  of  silence  stretched  away  on  every  side ;  and 
my  being  expanded  in  proportion,  and  filled  them." 

In  his  little  forest-house,  Thoreau  had  three  chairs, 
"one  for  solitude,  two  for  friendship,  three  for  society." 
"  My  nearest  neighbor  is  a  mile  distant.  It  is  as  solitary 
where  I  live  as  on  the  prairies.  It  is  as  much  Asia  or 
Africa  as  New  England.  I  have,  as  it  were,  my  own  sun 
and  moon  and  stars ;  and  a  little  world  all  to  myself." 
"  At  night,  there  was  never  a  traveller  passed  my  door, 
more  than  if  I  were  the  first  or  last  man."  "  We  are 
wont  to  imagine  rare  and  delectable  places  in  some  re- 
mote and  more  celestial  corner  of  the  system,  —  behind 
the  constellation  of  Cassiopea's  Chair,  far  from  noise  and 
disturbance.  I  discovered  that  my  house  actually  had  its 
site  in  such  a  withdrawn,  but  forever  new  and  unprofaned, 
part  of  the  universe."  "  I  love  to  be  alone.  I  never  found 
the  companion  that  was  so  companionable  as  solitude." 
In  this  last  sentence  we  catch  a  tone  from  the  diseased 
or  disproportioned  side  of  the  writer.  He  was  unhealthy 
and  unjust  in  all  his  thoughts  on  society  ;  underrating  the 
value,  overrating  the  dangers,  of  intercourse  with  men. 
But  his  thoughts  on  retirement,  the  still  study  and  love 
of  nature,  though  frequently  exaggerated,  are  uniformly 
sound.  He  has  a  most  catholic  toleration,  a  wholesome 
and  triumphant  enjoyment,  of  every  natural  object,  from 
star  to  skunk-cabbage.  He  says,  with  tonic  eloquence, 
"  Nothing  can  rightly  compel  a  simple  and  brave  man  to 
a  vulgar  sadness  :  while  I  enjoy  the  friendship  of  the  sea- 
sons, I  trust  that  nothing  can  make  life  a  burden  to  me." 
But  the  moment  he  turns  to  contemplate  his  fellow-men, 
all  his  geniality  leaves  him,  —  he  grows  bigoted,  contemp- 
tuous, almost  inhuman  :  "  The  names  of  men  are  of  course 
as  cheap  and  meaningless  as  Bose  and  Tray,  the  names 
of  dogs.  I  will  not  allow  mere  names  to  make  distinc- 
tions for  me,  but  still  see  men  in  herds."  The  cynicism 
and  the  sophistry  are  equal.  His  scorn  constantly  ex- 
hales :  "The  Irishman  eiects  his  sty,  and  gets  drunk,  and 
jabbers  more  and  more  under  my  eaves ;  and  I  am  re- 


THOREAU.  331 

sponsible  for  all  that  filth  and  folly.  I  find  it  very  un- 
profitable to  have  much  to  do  with  men.  Emerson  says 
that  his  life  is  so  unprofitable  and  shabby  for  the  most 
part,  that  he  is  driven  to  all  sorts  of  resources,  and,  among 
the  rest,  to  men.  I  have  seen  more  men  than  usual,  lately ; 
and,  well  as  I  was  acquainted  with  one,  I  am  surprised  to 
find  what  vulgar  fellows  they  are.  They  do  a  little  busi- 
ness each  day,  to  pay  their  board  ;  then  they  congregate 
in  sitting-rooms,  and  feebly  fabulate  and  paddle  in  the 
social  slush  ;  and,  when  I  think  that  they  have  sufficiently 
relaxed,  and  am  prepared  to  see  them  steal  away  to  their 
shrines,  they  go  unashamed  to  their  beds,  and  take  on  a 
new  layer  of  sloth."  Once  in  a  while  he  gives  a  saner 
voice  out  of  a  fonder  mood  :  "  It  is  not  that  we  love  to 
be  alone,  but  that  we  love  to  soar ;  and,  when  we  soar, 
the  company  grows  thinner  and  thinner,  till  there  is  none 
at  all."  But  the  conceited  and  misanthropic  fit  quickly 
comes  back  :  "  Would  I  not  rather  be  a  cedar  post,  which 
lasts  twenty-five  years,  than  the  farmer  that  set  it ;  or  he 
that  preaches  to  that  farmer  ? "  "  The  whole  enterprise 
of  this  nation  is  totally  devoid  of  interest  to  me.  There 
is  nothing  in  it  which  one  should  lay  down  his  life  for,  — 
nor  even  his  gloves.  What  aims  more  lofty  have  they 
than  the  prairie-dogs  ? " 

This  poisonous  sleet  of  scorn,  blowing  manward,  is 
partly  an  exaggerated  rhetoric ;  partly,  the  revenge  he 
takes  on  men  for  not  being  what  he  wants  them  to  be ; 
partly,  an  expression  of  his  unappreciated  soul  reacting 
in  defensive  contempt,  to  keep  him  from  sinking  below 
his  own  estimate  of  his  deserts.  '  It  is  curious  to  note  the 
contradictions  his  inner  uneasiness  begets.  Now  he  says, 
"  In  what  concerns  you  much,  do  not  think  you  have  com- 
panions ;  know  that  you  are  alone  in  the  world."  Then 
he  writes  to  one  of  his  correspondents,  "  I  wish  I  could 
have  the  benefit  of  your  criticism  ;  it  would  be  a  rare  help 
to  me."  The  following  sentence  has  a  cheerful  surface,  but 
a  sad  bottom :  "  I  have  lately  got  back  to  that  glorious 
society,  called  solitude,  where  we  meet  our  friends  con- 
tinually, and  can  imagine  the  outside  world  also  to  be 
peopled."  At  one  moment,  he  says,  "  I  have  never  felt 


332  SKETCHES    OF    LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

lonesome,  or  the  least  oppressed  by  a  sense  of  solitude; 
but  once ;  and  then  I  was  conscious  of  a  slight  insanity 
in  my  mood."  At  another  moment  he  says,  "  Ah !  what 
foreign  countries  there  are,  stretching  away  on  every  side 
from  every  human  being  with  whom  you  have  no  sym- 
pathy !  Their  humanity  affects  one  as  simply  monstrous. 
When  I  sit  in  the  parlors  and  kitchens  of  some  with  whom 
my  business  brings  me — I  was  going  to  say  —  in  contact, 
I  feel  a  sort  of  awe,  and  am  as  forlorn  as  if  I  were  cast  away 
on  a  desolate  shore.  I  think  of  Riley's  narrative,  and  his 
sufferings."  That  his  alienation  from  society  was  mere 
bitter  than  sweet,  less  the  result  of  constitutional  superi- 
ority than  of  dissatisfied  experience,  is  significantly  indi- 
cated, when  we  find  him  saying,  at  twenty-five,  "  I  seem 
to  have  dodged  all  my  days  with  one  or  two  persons,  and 
lived  upon  expectation";  at  thirty-five,  "  I  thank  you  again 
and  again  for  attending  to  me";  and  at  forty-five,  "I  was 
particularly  gratified  when  one  of  my  friends  said,  '  I  wish 
you  would  write  another  book,  —  write  it  for  me.'  He  is 
actually  more  familiar  with  what  I  have  written  than  I 
am  myself." 

The  truth  is,  his  self-estimate  and  ambition  were  inor- 
dinate ;  his  willingness  to  pay  the  price  of  their  out- 
ward gratification,  a  negative  quantity.  Their  exorbitant 
demands  absorbed  him ;  but  he  had  not  those  powerful 
charms  and  signs  which  would  draw  from  others  a  corre- 
spondent valuation  of  him  and  attention  to  him.  Accord- 
ingly, he  shut  his  real  self  in  a  cell  of  secrecy,  and  re- 
treated from  men  whose  discordant  returns  repelled,  to 
natural  objects  whose  accordant  repose  seemed  accept- 
ingly  to  confirm  and  return,  the  required  estimate  im- 
posed on  them.  The  key  of  his  life  is  the  fact  that  it 
was  devoted  to  the  art  of  an  interior  aggrandizement  of 
himself.  The  three  chief  tricks  in  this  art  are,  first,  a 
direct  self-enhancement,  by  a  boundless  pampering  of 
egotism ;  secondly,  an  indirect  self-enhancement,  by  a 
scornful  depreciation  of  others ;  thirdly,  an  imaginative 
magnifying  of  every  trifle  related  to  self,  by  associating 
with  it  a  colossal  idea  of  the  self.  It  is  difficult  to  open 
many  pages  in  the  written  record  of  Thoreau  without 


THOREAU.  333 

•  • 

oeing  confronted  with  examples  of  these  three  tricks. 
He  is  constantly,  with  all  his  boastful  stoicism,  feeling 
himself,  reflecting  himself,  fondling  himself,  reverberating 
himself,  exalting  himself,  incapable  of  escaping  or  forget- 
ting himself.  He  is  never  contented  with  things  until 
they  are  wound  through,  and  made  to  echo  himself;  and 
this  is  the  very  mark  of  spiritual  disturbance.  "  When  I 
detect,"  he  says,  "  a  beauty  in  any  of  the  recesses  of  na- 
ture, I  am  reminded,  by  the  serene  and  retired  spirit  in 
which  it  requires  to  be  contemplated,  of  the  inexpressi- 
ble privacy  of  a  life."  '  In  the  holiest  and  silentest  nook 
his  fancy  conjures  the  spectre  of  himself,  and  an  ideal 
din  from  society  for  contrast.  He  says  of  his  own  pur- 
suits, "  The  unchallenged  bravery  which  these  studies 
imply  is  far  more  impressive  than  the  trumpeted  valor  of 
the  warrior."  When  he  sees  a  mountain  he  sings  :  — 

Wachuset,  who,  like  me, 

Standest  alone  without  society, 

Upholding  heaven,  holding  down  earth,  — 

Thy  pastime  from  thy  birth,  — 

Not  steadied  by  the  one,  nor  leaning  on  the  other, 

May  I  approve  myself  thy  worthy  brother  ! 

This  self-exaggeration  peers  out  even  through  the  dis- 
guise of  humor  and  of  satire  :  "  I  am  not  afraid  of  praise, 
for  I  have  practised  it  on  myself.  The  stars  and  I 
belong  to  a  mutual-admiration  society."  "  I  do  not  pro- 
pose to  write  an  ode  to  dejection,  but  to  brag  as  lustily 
as  chanticleer  in  the  morning,  standing  on  his  roost." 
"  The  mass  of  men  lead  lives  of  quiet  desperation." 
But  he,  — he  is  victorious,  sufficing,  royal.  At  all  events 
he  will  be  unlike  other  people.  "  I  am  a  mere  arena  for 
thoughts  and  feelings,  a  slight  film,  or  dash  of  vapor,  so 
faint  an  entity,  and  make  so  slight  an  impression,  that  no- 
body can  find  the  traces  of  me."  "  I  am  something  to 
him  that  made  me,  undoubtedly,  but  not  much  to  any 
other  that  he  has  made."  "  Many  are  concerned  to  know 
vho  built  the  monuments  of  the  East  and  West.  For 
my  part,  I  should  like  to  know  who,  in  those  days,  did 
not  build  them,  —  who  were  above  such  trifling."  "  For 
my  part,  I  could  easily  do  without  the  post-office.  I  am 


334       SKETCHES  OF  LONELY  CHARACTERS. 

sure  that  I  never  read  any  memorable  news  in  a  news- 
paper." This  refrain  of  opposition  between  the  general 
thoughts  and  feelings  of  mankind  and  his  own,  recurs 
until  it  becomes  comical,  and  we  look  for  it.  He  refused 
invitations  to  dine  out,  saying,  "  They  make  their  pride 
in  making  their  dinner  cost  much  ;  I  make  my  pride  in 
making  my  dinner  cost  little."  One  is  irresistibly  re- 
minded of  Plato's  retort,  when  Diogenes  said,  "  See  how 
I  tread  on  the  pride  of  Plato/'  — "  Yes,  with  greater 
pride." 

But  he  more  than  asserts  his  difference  ;  he  explicitly 
proclaims  his  superiority :  "  Sometimes  when  I  compare 
myself  with  other  men,  it  seems  as  if  I  were  more  favored 
by  the  gods  than  they."  "  When  I  realize  the  greatness 
of  the  part  I  am  unconsciously  acting,  it  seems  as  if  there 
were  none  in  history  to  match  it."  Speaking  of  the  scarlet 
oaks,  he  acids  with  Italics  :  "These  are  my  china-asters,  my 
late  garden-flowers  ;  it  costs  me  nothing  for  a  gardener." 
The  unlikeness  of  genius  to  mediocrity  is  a  fact,  but  not  a 
fact  of  that  relative  momentousness  entitling  it  to  mo- 
nopolize attention.  He  makes  a  great  ado  about  his  ab- 
sorbing occupation ;  his  sacred  engagements  with  himself; 
his  consequent  inability  to  do  anything  for  others,  or  to 
meet  those  who  wished  to  see  him.  In  the  light  of  this 
obtrusive  trait  the  egotistic  character  of  many  passages 
like  the  following  becomes  emphatic  :  "  Only  think,  for 
a  moment,  of  a  man  about  his  affairs !  How  we  should 
respect  him  !  How  glorious  he  would  appear !  A  man 
about  his  business  would  be  the  cynosure  of  all  eyes." 
He  evidently  had  the  jaundice  of  desiring  men  to  think 
as  well  of  him  as  he  thought  of  himself;  and,  when  they 
would  not,  he  ran  into  the  woods.  But  he  could  not  es- 
cape thus,  since  he  carried  them  still  in  his  mind. 

His  quotations  are  not  often  beautiful  or  valuable,  but 
appear  to  be  made  as  bids  for  curiosity  or  admiration,  or 
to  produce  some  other  sharp  effect ;  as  they  are  almost 
invariably  strange,  bizarre,  or  absurd:  culled  from  ob 
scure  corners,  Damodara,  lamblichus,  the  Vishnu  Purana, 
or  some  such  out-of-the-way  source.  He  seems  to  take 
oddity  for  originality,  extravagant  singularity  for  depth 


THOREAU.  335 

and  force.  His  pages  are  profusely  peppered  with  pun- 
gent paradoxes  and  exaggerations,  —  a  straining  for  sen- 
sation, not  in  keeping  with  his  pretence  of  sufficing  repose 
and  greatness:  "Why  should  I  feel  lonely?  is  not  our 
planet  in  the  Milky  Way?"  "All  that  men  have  said  or 
are,  is  a  very  faint  rumor ;  and  it  is  not  worth  their  while 
to  remember  or  refer  to  that."  He  exemplifies,  to  an 
extent  truly  astonishing,  the  great  vice  of  the  spiritual 
hermit ;  the  beJittling,  because  he  dislikes  them,  of  things 
ordinarily  considered  important ;  and  the  aggrandizing, 
because  he  likes  them,  of  things  usually  regarded  as  in- 
significant. His  eccentricities  are  uncorrected  by  colli- 
sion with  the  eccentricities  of  others,  and  his  petted 
idiosyncrasies  spurn  at  the  average  standards  of  sanity 
and  usage.  Grandeur,  dissociated  from  him,  dwindles 
into  pettiness ;  pettiness,  linked  with  his  immense  ego, 
dilates  into  grandeur.  In  his  conceited  separation  he 
mistakes  a  crotchet  for  a  consecration.  If  a  worm  crosses 
his  path,  and  he  stops  to  watch  its  crawl,  it  is  greater  than 
an  interview  with  the  Duke  of  Wellington. 

It  is  the  wise  observation  of  Lavater,  that  whoever 
makes  too  much  or  too  little  of  himself  has  a  false  meas 
ure  for  everything.  Few  persons  have  cherished  a  more 
preposterous  idea  of  self  than  Thoreau,  or  been  more  per- 
sistently ridden  by  the  enormity.  This  false  standard  of 
valuation  vitiates  every  moral  measurement  he  makes. 
He  describes  a  battle  of  red  and  black  ants  before  his 
wood-pile  at  Walden,  as  if  it  were  more  important  than 
Marathon  or  Gettysburg.  His  faculties  were  vast,  and  his 
time  inexpressibly  precious  :  this  struggle  of  the  pismires 
occupied  his  faculties  and  time  ;  therefore  this  struggle  of 
the  pismires  must  be  an  inexpressibly  great  matter.  A 
trifle,  plus  his  ego,  was  immense ;  an  immensity,  minus 
his  ego,  was  a  trifle.  Is  it  a  haughty  conceit  or  a  noble 
loftiness  that  makes  him  say,  "  When  you  knock  at  the 
Celestial  City,  ask  to  see  God,  —  none  of  the  servants  "  ? 
He  says,  "  Mine  is  a  sugar  to  sweeten  sugar  with  :  if  you 
will  listen  to  me,  I  will  sweeten  your  whole  life."  Again, 
"  I  would  put  forth  sublime  thoughts  daily,  as  the  plant 
puts  forth  leaves."  And  yet  again,  "  I  shall  be  a  ber.e- 


336  SKETCHES   OF    LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

factor  if  I  conquer  some  realms  from  the  night,  —  if  I 
add  to  the  domains  of  poetry."  After  such  manifestos, 
we  expect  much.  We  do  not  find  so  much  as  we  natu- 
rally expect. 

He  was  rather  an  independent  and  obstinate  thinker 
than  a  powerful  or  rich  one.  His  works,  taken  in  their 
whole  range,  instead  of  being  fertile  in  ideas,  are  marked 
by  speculative  sterility.  "  He  was  one  of  those  men,"  a 
friendly  but  honest  critic  says,  "  who,  from  conceit  or  dis- 
appointment, inflict  upon  themselves  a  seclusion  which 
reduces  them  at  last,  after  nibbling  everything  within 
reach  of  their  tether,  to  simple  rumination  and  incessant 
returns  of  the  same  cud  to  the  tongue."  This  unsympa- 
thetic temper  is  betrayed  in  a  multitude  of  such  sentences 
as  this  :  "  O  ye  that  would  have  the  cocoanut  wrong  side 
outwards  !  when  next  I  weep  I  will  let  you  know."  Tho- 
reau  is  not  the  true  type  of  a  great  man,  a  genuine  master 
of  life,  because  he  does  not  reflect  greatness  and  joy  over 
men  and  life,  but  upholds  his  idea  of  his  own  greatness 
and  mastership  by  making  the  characters  and  lives  of 
others  little  and  mean.  Those  who,  like  Wordsworth  and 
Channing,  reverse  this  process,  are  the  true  masters  and 
models.  A  feeling  of  superiority  to  others,  with  love  and 
honor  for  them,  is  the  ground  of  complacency  and  a  con- 
dition of  chronic  happiness.  A  feeling  of  superiority  to 
others,  with  alienation  from  them  and  hate  for  them,  is 
the  sure  condition  of  perturbations  and  unhappiness. 

Many  a  humble  and  loving  author  who  has  nestled 
amongst  his  fellow-men  and  not  boasted,  has  contributed 
far  more  to  brace  and  enrich  the  characters  and  sweeten 
the  lives  of  his  readers  than  the  ill-balanced  and  unsatis- 
fied hermit  of  Concord,  part  cynic,  part  stoic,  who  strove 
to  compensate  himself  with  nature  and  solitude  for  what 
he  could  not  wring  from  men  and  society.  The  extrava- 
gant estimate  he  put  on  solitude  may  serve  as  a  corrective 
of  the  extravagant  estimate  put  on  society  by  our  hives 
of  citizens.  His  monstrous  preference  of  savagedoin  to 
civilization  may  usefully  influence  us  to  appreciate  natural 
unsophisticatedness  more  highly,  and  conventionality  more 
lowly.  As  a  teacher,  this  is  nearly  the  extent  of  his  nar- 


THOREAU.  337 

row  mission.  Lowell,  in  a  careful  article,  written  after 
reading  all  the  published  works  of  Thoreau,  says  of  him : 
"  He  seems  to  us  to  have  been  a  man  with  so  high  a  con- 
ceit of  himself,  that  he  accepted  without  questioning, 
and  insisted  on  our  accepting,  his  defects  and  weaknesses 
of  character,  as  virtues  and  powers  peculiar  to  himself. 
Was  he  indolent,  —  he  finds  none  of  the  activities  which 
attract  or  employ  the  rest  of  mankind  worthy  of  him. 
Was  he  wanting  in  the  qualities  that  make  success,  —  it 
is  success  that  is  contemptible,  and  not  himself  that  lacks 
persistency  and  purpose.  Was  he  poor,  —  money  was  an 
unmixed  evil.  Did  his  life  seem  a  selfish  one,  —  he 
condemns  doing  good,  as  one  of  the  weakest  of  super- 
stitions." 

In  relation  to  the  intellectual  and  moral  influence  of 
solitude,  the  example  of  Thoreau,  with  all  the  alleviating 
wisdom,  courage,  and  tenderness  confessedly  in  it,  is 
chiefly  valuable  as  an  illustration  of  the  evils  of  a  want 
of  sympathy  with  the  community.  Yet  there  is  often  a 
deep  justice,  a  grandly  tonic  breath  of  self-reliance,  in  his 
exhortations.  How  sound  and  admirable  the  following 
passage :  "  If  you  seek  the  warmth  of  affection  from  a 
similar  motive  to  that  from  which  cats  and  dogs  and 
slothful  persons  hug  the  fire,  because  your  temperature  is 
low  through  sloth,  you  are  on  the  downward  road.  Better 
the  cold  affection  of  the  sun,  reflected  from  fields  of  ice 
and  snow,  or  his  warmth  in  some  still  wintry  dell.  Warm 
your  body  by  healthful  exercise,  not  by  cowering  over  a 
stove.  Warm  your  spirit  by  performing  independently 
noble  deeds,  not  by  ignobly  seeking  the  sympathy  of  your 
fellows  who  are  no  better  than  yoi  "self." 

Though  convinced  of  the  justice  of  this  sketch,  the 
writer  feels  rebuked,  as  if  it  wen.  not  kind  enough,  when 
he  remembers  the  pleasure  he  has  had  in  many  of  the 
pages  of  Thoreau,  and  the  affecting  scene  of  his  funeral 
on  that  beautiful  summer  day  in  the  dreamy  town  of 
Concord.  There  was  uncommon  love  in  him,  but  it  felt 
itself  repulsed,  and,  too  proud  to  beg  or  moan,  it  put  on 
stoicism  and  wore  it  until  the  mask  became  the  face. 
His  opinionative  stiffness  and  contempt  were  his  hurt  self- 


338  SKETCHES   OF    LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

respect  protecting  itself  against  the  conventionalities  and 
scorns  of  those  who  despised  what  he  revered  and  revered 
what  he  despised.  His  interior  life,  with  the  relations 
of  thoughts  and  things,  was  intensely  tender  and  true, 
however  sorely  ajar  he  may  have  been  with  persons  and 
with  the  ideas  of  persons.  If  he  was  sour,  it  was  on  a 
store  of  sweetness ;  if  sad,  on  a  fund  of  gladness. 

While  we  walked  in  procession  up  to  the  church,  though 
the  bell  tolled  the  forty-four  years  he  had  numbered,  we 
could  not  deem  that  he  was  dead  whose  ideas  and  senti- 
ments were  so  vivid  in  our  souls.  As  the  fading  image 
of  pathetic  clay  lay  before  us,  strewn  with  wild  flowers 
and  forest  sprigs,  thoughts  of  its  former  occupant  seemed 
blent  with  all  the  local  landscapes.  We  still  recall  with 
emotion  the  tributary  words  so  fitly  spoken  by  friendly 
and  illustrious  lips.  The  hands  of  friends  reverently 
lowered  the  body  of  the  lonely  poet  into  the  bosom  of 
the  earth,  on  the  pleasant  hillside  of  his  native  village, 
whose  prospects  will  long  wait  to  unfurl  themselves  to 
Another  observer  so  competent  to  discriminate  their  fea- 
tures and  so  attuned  to  their  moods.  And  now  that  it  is 
too  late  for  any  further  boon  amidst  his  darling  haunts 
below, 

There  will  yet  his  mother  yield 

A  pillow  in  her  greenest  field, 

Nor  the  June  flowers  scorn  to  cover 

The  clay  of  their  departed  lover. 


MAURICE    DE   GU^RIN. 

MAURICE  DE  GUERIN,  born  in  Southern  France,  in  1810, 
of  an  ancient  and  noble  but  impoverished  family,  was 
graced  with  such  personal  gifts  as  to  attract  extreme  in- 
terest from  his  associates,  and  endowed  with  literary  tal- 
ents which  have  gained  him  an  enviable  fame  by  the  few 
exquisite  works  bequeathed  when  he  died,  at  the  early 
age  of  twenty-nine.  His  sister  Eugenie,  and  his  friends, 
Trebutien,  La  Morvonnais,  Marzan,  Sainte-Beuve,  George 
Sand,  and  others,  have  secured  the  publication  of  his  brief 
compositions,  drawn  attention  to  their  singular  charm,  and 


MAURICE   DE   GUtiRIN.  339 

paid  tributes  to  his  memory  not  soon  to  be  forgotten. 
Nothing  of  the  kind  can  be  more  interesting  than  the 
peculiarities  of  constitution  and  experience  which  made 
the  character  of  this  gifted  young  man  so  shy  and  lonely, 
his  career  so  unhappy,  his  death  so  pathetic,  the  image 
of  him  left  behind  so  strangely  attractive  and  sad. 

At  twelve,  the  tender  boy,  "  poor  bird  exiled  from  his 
native  turrets,"  went  to  Toulouse  to  study  at  a  seminary 
there  ;  afterwards  to  the  College  Stanislas  in  Paris.  At 
a  later  period,  he  returned  home,  and  tarried  in  the  midst 
of  domestic  love  and  the  stillest  seclusion.  But,  inwardly 
wounded,  unhappy,  uncertain,  he  was  drawn  in  heart  and 
fancy  alternately  to  a  brilliant  career  in  the  world,  and  to 
the  mystic  life  of  a  religious  retreat.  The  following  strik- 
ing passage  is  a  transcript  from  his  own  soul ;  "  Which  is 
the  true  God  ?  The  God  of  cities,  or  the  God  of  deserts  ? 
To  which  to  go  ?  Long-cherished  tastes,  impulses  of  the 
heart,  accidents  of  life,  decide  the  choice.  The  man  of 
cities  laughs  at  the  strange  dreams  of  the  eremites  :  these, 
on  the  other  hand,  exult  at  their  separation,  at  finding 
themselves,  like  the  islands  of  the  great  ocean,  far  from 
continents,  and  bathed  by  unknown  waves.  The  most  to 
be  pitied  are  those  who,  flung  between  these  two,  stretch 
their  arms  first  to  the  one,  then  to  the  other."  The  last 
sentence  describes  his  own  state  for  a  long  time.  He 
at  length  came  under  the  influence  of  the  renowned 
Lamennais,  whose  disciples  he  joined  at  La  Chenaie. 
Amidst  the  wild  scenery  of  Brittany,  with  a  group  of 
enthusiastic  young  men  of  genius  and  devotion,  under 
the  eye  of  the  fascinating  master  whose  combination  of 
Catholicism  and  Democracy,  whose  electric  words,  whose 
conflict  and  subsequent  rupture  with  the  papacy,  caused 
such  a  sensation  in  that  day  ;  whose  soul  was  so  torn, 
and  whose  end  so  tragic,  —  Maurice  remained  for  nine 
months.  But  he  was  made  for  a  poet  rather  than  for  a 
devotee.  The  attraction  of  nature  and  letters  overpow- 
ered that  of  faith  and  the  cloister.  And  one  day,  with 
deep  emotion,  he  said  farewell  to  his  venerated  master, 
parted  from  his  beloved  comrades,  and  heard  the  gates 
of  the  little  paradise  of  La  Chenaie  shut  behind  him. 


340       SKETCHES  OF  LONELY  CHARACTERS. 

He  paused  on  his  way  to  Paris  at  the  romantic  home 
of  his  friend  La  Morvonnais.  "  Behold  how  good  Prov- 
idence is  to  me !  For  fear  the  sudden  transition  from  the 
softly-tempered  air  of  religious  solitude  to  the  torrid  zone 
of  the  world  would  try  my  soul  too  severely,  it  has  drawn 
me  from  my  sanctuary  into  a  house  raised  on  the  bordet 
of  the  two  regions,  where,  without  being  in  solitude,  one 
still  does  not  belong  to  the  world ;  a  house  whose  win- 
dows open,  on  the  one  side  upon  the  plain  covered  with 
the  tumult  of  men,  on  the  other  upon  the  desert  where 
the  servants  of  God  are  singing ;  there  upon  the  ocean, 
here  upon  the  woods."  He  went  to  the  capital  in  which 
the  ambition,  intellect,  and  pleasure  of  the  world  are  con- 
centrated. His  religious  interest  died  down.  He  drank 
the  cup  which  the  senses  are  offered  in  that  wondrous  be- 
wilderment of  prizes,  perils,  delights,  agonies,  —  the  fo- 
cus of  the  luxuries  and  excitements  of  the  earth.  A  hard 
struggle  with  obscurity  and  poverty,  interspersed  with 
ominous  illness,  with  a  few  visits  to  dear  Cayla,  followed 
by  his  happy  marriage,  crowned  in  less  than  a  year  by  his 
death,  —  and  the  bitter-sweet  story  of  his  outer  life  was 
done. 

Guerin  was  one  of  those  natures  gifted  with  vast 
powers  of  intuition  and  sentiment,  but  small  powers  of 
organization  and  execution,  who  exceedingly  interest 
others,  but  are  unable  to  be  sufficiently  interested  them- 
selves, and  therefore  early  become  the  victims  of  depres- 
sion, weariness,  sickness,  and  death.  His  nervous  sys- 
tem was  of  that  ethereal  and  ravenous  temperament, 
which,  not  able  to  appropriate  accordant  and  adequate 
nutriment  from  without,  preys  upon  itself.  Preternatu- 
rally  sensitive  to  ideal  hurts  and  helps,  he  nursed  those 
delicious  sadnesses  which  devour  vitality  while  they  feed 
sentiment.  He  felt  his  thoughts  and  emotions  as  though 
they  were  material  pictures,  solid  objects  passing  through 
his  imagination  all  alive,  conscious  atoms  swimming  in 
the  bosom  of  the  soul.  Consequently,  matters  of  the 
inner  life  which  would  be  to  others  only  trifling  impres- 
sions were  colossal  portents  to  him,  —  electrifying  blisses 
or  overwhelming  agonies.  He  seemed  to  possess  marvel- 


MAURICE   DE   GUERIN.  34! 

• 

lous  modes  of  intellection  and  emotion  of  his  own,  sweet- 
er and  vaguer  than  are  known  by  common  mortals ;  "  an 
intoxication  of  delicious  monotony  and  languor ;  a  half 
sleep,  empty  of  thought,  yet  full  of  enchanting  dreams 
of  beautiful  things."  Too  rich  to  be  insensible  to  the 
wealth  and  loveliness  of  the  universe,  too  poor  to  be  able 
to  grasp  and  fix  the  divine  shapes  in  solid  forms  of  art,  he 
was  torn  between  aspiration  and  weakness,  will  and  want. 
Few  souls  ever  turned  so  lucid  a  mirror  to  the  phenome- 
na of  nature,  or  were  so  intensely  conscious  of  what  oc- 
curred within  them,  as  his.  Musing  on  a  fearful  tem- 
pest, he  said,  "  Strange  and  admirable,  these  moments  of 
sublime  agitation  joined  with  profound  reverie,  wherein 
the  soul  and  nature,  arrayed  in  all  their  grandeur,  lift 
themselves  face  to  face."  At  times,  he  said,  he  could 
hear  at  the  bottom  of  his  being  faint  murmurs  marking 
the  return  of  life  from  afar.  "  These  rustling  rumors  are 
produced  by  my  thoughts,  which,  rising  out  of  their  dolo- 
rous torpor,  make  a  light  agitation  of  timid  joy,  and  be- 
gin conversations  full  of  memories  and  hopes."  What 
a  delicate  revelation  of  his  poetic  softness  of  soul  in  this 
sentiment,  "  Happy  who  sits  on  the  top  of  the  mountain, 
and  sees  the  lion  bound  and  roar  across  the  plain,  with 
no  traveller  or  gazelle  passing  near  ! " 

He  was  fascinating  both  by  demonstrativeness  and  by 
reticence,  his  frankness  and  his  mystery.  His  father  said 
that  "in  childhood  his  soul  was  often  seen  on  his  lips 
ready  to  fly."  His  writings  show  a  spiritual  unveiling, 
wonderful  in  quality  and  quantity.  Yet  he  says,  "  That 
which  every  man  of  a  certain  choice  nature  guards  with 
the  greatest  vigilance,  is  the  secret  of  his  soul  and  of  the 
closest  habits  of  his  thoughts.  I  love  this  god  Harpoc- 
rates,  his  finger  on  his  lip."  And  Sainte-Beuve  says, 
"  He  loved  only  on  the  surface,  and  before  the  first  cur- 
tain of  his  soul :  the  depth,  something  behind,  remained 
mysterious  and  reserved."  He  was  unlike  those  about 
him,  and  the  strange  difference  drew  them,  while  it  es- 
tranged him.  The  superlative  tenderness  of  his  spirit 
was  a  weakness  that  disqualified  him  for  happiness  among 
the  coarse,  noisy  natures  of  the  commonalty,  and  made 


342  SKETCHES   OF   LONELY  CHARACTERS. 

him  in  all  things  shrink  from  the  vulgar,  and  yearn  to  the 
select ;  detest  the  commonplace,  and  adore  the  sublime. 
He  said  the  reading  of  Chateaubriand's  Rene  dissolved 
his  soul  like  a  rain-storm.  He  complained  greatly  of  the 
loss  in  society  of  all  simple  and  primitive  tastes,  the 
sophistication  and  destruction  of  the  naive  virgin  senti- 
ments of  the  soul.  Feeling  himself  solitary,  excommu- 
nicated, diffident,  and  embarrassed,  he  often  regarded  the 
intrepidity  and  effrontery  of  more  audacious  though  in- 
ferior men,  his  associates,  with  admiration,  and  almost 
envy :  they,  on  the  other  hand,  recognized  his  rare  gifts, 
plied  him  with  compliments,  urged  him  forward,  rallied 
him  with  jests  on  his  shrinking  self-depreciation  and  fear. 
He  wrote  in  his  journal,  "  To  me  it  is  insupportable  to 
appear  other  before  men  than  one  is  before  God.  My 
severest  punishment  at  this  instant  is  the  extravagant  es- 
timate formed  of  me  by  some  beautiful  souls."  Again  : 
"  I  lose  half  of  my  soul  in  losing  solitude.  I  enter  the 
world  with  a  secret  horror."  Going  into  Paris,  "  trem- 
bling and  shivering  as  a.  scared  deer,"  distrustful  of  him- 
self, and  afraid  of  men,  he  prays,  "  My  God  !  close  my 
eyes ;  keep  me  from  the  sight  of  the  multitude,  the  view 
of  whom  raises  in  me  thoughts  so  bitter,  so  discouraging. 
Let  me  traverse  the  crowd,  deaf  to  the  noise,  inaccessi- 
ble to  the  impressions  which  crush  me  as  I  pass  through 
it.  Place  before  my  eyes,  instead,  a  vision  of  something 
I  love,  —  a  field,  a  vale,  a  moor,  Le  Cayla,  Le  Val,  an 
image  of  some  object  of  nature." 

The  isolation  and  unhappiness  of  this  poor  youth  were 
unspeakably  piteous.  At  eighteen,  he  speaks  of  being 
"  possessed  by  an  inveterate  melancholy,  and  fed  on  a 
sad  diet  of  regrets  and  miseries."  It  is  obvious  that  he 
was  never  a  misanthrope  or  an  indifferentist,  but  painfully 
concerned  about  his  fellow-men.  He  had  an  absorbing 
ambition  in  combination  with  a  haunting  sense  of  a  lack 
of  the  organic  strength  and  perseverance  necessary  to 
sustain  the  tremendous  labors  which  alone  could  ever 
purchase  the  proud  attainments  he  coveted.  This  am- 
bition, and  this  conviction  of  defect,  kept  him  making 
comparisons,  — personal,  artistic,  critical ;  and  constantly 


MAURICE   DE   GUERIN.  343 

lowered  him  in  his  own  eyes,  distressed  him  and  preyed 
on  him.  In  one  of  his  moods  of  keen  self-scrutiny,  he 
isks,  "  Why  am  I  so  depressed  by  the  sight  of  mediocre 
productions  ?  Is  it  a  dolorous  pity  for  that  saddest  of  all 
spectacles,  powerless  vanity  ?  Or  is  it  conscience,  and 
return  upon  myself? "  His  own  halting  works  and  futile 
efforts,  set  against  the  models  of  the  great  masters  and 
the  standards  of  perfection  which  his  imagination  re- 
vealed, were  a  contrast  too  sharp  for  his  peace  ;  and,  in 
the  annihilation  of  complacency,  he  laid  his  face  in  the 
dust  with  bitter  sorrow.  In  a  youthful  letter  to  his  con- 
fessor, he  writes,  "  Poverty  and  sorrow  are  hereditary  in 
my  family  :  the  most  of  my  ancestors  died  in  misfortune. 
I  believe  this  has  had  an  influence  on  my  character. 
Why  should  not  the  sentiment  of  unhappiness  communi- 
cate itself  with  the  blood,  when  we  see  fathers  transmitting 
to  their  children  physical  deformities  ?  My  first  years 
were  extremely  sad  and  lonely.  When  I  was  only  six 
years  old,  my  mother  died  ;  and,  brought  up  in  scenes  of 
mourning,  perhaps  I  acquired  the  habitude  of  melan- 
choly." "  Several  causes  belonging  to  my  nature,  inte- 
rior and  exterior,  very  early  turned  me  back  upon  myself. 
My  soul  was  my  first  horizon.  Ah,  how  long  I  gaze 
there  !  I  see  vapors  rise  from  the  bottom  of  my  being  as 
out  of  a  deep  valley,  and  take  form  under  the  breath  of 
chance,  —  indescribable  phantoms  which  ascend  slowly 
and  without  cessation.  The  powerful  fascination  which 
this  monotonous  spectacle  exerts  on  me  makes  it  impos- 
sible for  me  to  turn  my  eyes  from  it  for  a  moment." 

The  two  chains  of  physical  pain  and  moral  pain  held 
him  fast  in  an  over-acute  consciousness  of  himself.  He 
says  he  often  suffered  inexpressibly  "  from  sudden  con- 
traction of  his  being  after  an  extreme  dilatation."  His 
profound  and  strange  misery  is  to  a  large  extent  suscep- 
tible of  a  physiological  explanation.  It  resulted  from  the 
possession  of  a  faculty  of  life  much  greater  than  its  sup 
ply.  His  soul  was  a  noble  engine  with  insufficient  fuel 
and  fire,  and  the  incongruity  produced  agonizing  want. 
His  spirit  was  effusively  expansive  :  his  nerves  scantily 
furnished.  The  former  is  seen  in  the  close  of  a  letter  to 


344  SKETCHES   OF    LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

his  friend  Marzan  :  "  I  love  you,  and  embrace  you  with  all 
the  strength  of  my  arms  and  my  heart,  at  the  risk  of  suf- 
focating you  with  the  one,  and  inundating  you  with  the 
other."  The  latter  is  betrayed  in  these  dismal  sentences  : 
"  The  moral  expanse  which  my  life  embraces  is  like  a 
solitude  covered  by  an  iron  heaven,  motionless,  without 
seasons."  —  "I  project  a  shadow  alone  :, every  form  is 
opaque,  and  struck  with  death.  As  in  a  march  at  night, 
I  go  forward  with  the  isolated  feeling  of  my  existence, 
amidst  the  inert  phantoms  of  all  things."  The  flowers  of 
his  being,  the  brain  and 'heart,  exhausted  the  roots  ;  and 
this  excessive  spiritual  vitality,  based  on  a  defective  ani- 
mal vitality,  could  not  but  manifest  itself  in  misery.  A 
deficiency  of  organic  force  fixes  attention  unduly  on  the 
experiences  of  loss,  disappointment,  decay.  It  sheds 
paleness, and  shadow  over  all  things.  It  furnishes  the 
ideas  of  sorrow,  hollowness,  evanescence,  and  death  as 
the  ever-ready  links  of  association,  to  put  their  dominant 
stamps  on  all  things.  It  gives  our  transitions  of  con- 
sciousness a  downward  movement.  We  settle  from  the 
puissant  to  the  petty,  from  the  magnificent  to  the  mean, 
instead  of  soaring  from  the  low  and  poor  to  the  high  and 
grand.  With  abundant  organic  force  and  health,  the 
action  of  sympathy  —  our  spiritual  connection  with  all  out- 
side of  ourselves  —  terminates  in  ascent  and  expansion, 
enhancing  our  life.  But  in  morbid,  drained  conditions, 
the  tendency  of  that  action  is  towards  descent  and  con- 
traction, depressing  and  impoverishing  us  still  more. 
Then  the  universe  grows  ashy,  life  becomes  bitter,  the 
leaden  hue  of  death  spreads  over  all,  everywhere  sounds 
the  lugubrious  salutation  of  the  brothers  of  La  Trappe, 
Frere,  ilfaut  inourir, 

This  was  the  case  with  the  unhappy  Maurice.  The 
aching  voids  of  defective  vitality  continually  recalled  his 
attention,  and  every  meditation  ended  with  vacancy  and 
death.  His  exquisite  taste  and  proud  ambition,  joined 
with  his  deep  modesty  and  intense  perception  of  the 
standards  of  perfection,  ought  to  have  solaced  him  with 
the  joy  of  progressive  attainments,  but  they  stung  him 
with  wretchedness;  because,  instead  of  risirg  to  fasten 


MAURICE   DE   GUERIN.  345 

with  sympathetic  appropriation  on  the  higher  ranks  and 
wider  ranges  of  things,  and  stay  there,  after  admiringly 
regarding  them,  he  sank  in  despair,  to  fasten  on  the  ex- 
amples of  failure  and  thoughts  of  grief  below.  Every 
contemplation  of  the  glorious  models  of  the  masters  end- 
ed in  mortification  over  his  own  defeats.  "  When  I  study 
history,  or  the  works  of  a  great  man,  my  imagination  and 
my  desires  burn  ;  but  a  thought  quickly  follows  which 
makes  me  bitterly  feel  the  folly  of  my  wild  dreams  ;  for 
no  one  has  a  lower  opinion  of  me  than  I  have  myself." 
"  High  above  my  head,  far,  far  away,  I  seem  to  hear  the 
murmur  of  that  world  of  thought  and  feeling  to  which  I 
aspire  so  often,  but  where  I  can  never  attain."  "  I  wear 
myself  out  in  the  most  futile  mental  strainings,  and  make 
no  progress.  My  head  seems  dying ;  and,  when  the  wind 
blows,  I  fancy  I  feel  it,  as  if  I  were  a  tree,  blowing 
through  a  number  of  withered  branches  in  my  top.  Study 
is  quite  out  of  my  power.  Mental  work  brings  on,  not 
drowsiness,  but  an  irritable  and  nervous  disgust."  "  I 
am  one  of  those  who,  I  know  not  by  what  strange  malady 
of  the  soul,  nourish  a  deep  disgust  for  every  social  func- 
tion save  that  of  friendship.  O,  take  me  by  the  hand, 
my  friend,  for  I  shall  suffocate  in  the  crowd  if  you  do  not 
give  me  place." 

Maurice  affected  solitude,  simply  as  a  protection  from 
influences  and  claims  he  was  not  strong  enough  to  grap- 
ple with.  But  "friendship,"  his  sister  Eugenie  testifies, 
"  was  his  sweetest  and  strongest  feeling,  the  one  he  most 
thoroughly  entered  into,  best  liked  to  talk  of,  and  took 
with  him,  I  may  truly  say,  unto  the  tomb."  On  first  draw- 
ing near  to  Lamennais,  he  said  he  felt  "  that  mysterious 
trembling  of  which  we  are  conscious  when  we  approach 
divine  things  and  great  men."  Guerin  suffered  the  same 
trouble  in  his  relations  with  other  men  as  in  his  relations 
with  himself,  the  trouble  which  comes  from  fine  affection 
with  lack  of  confidence  and  complacency.  He  seems  to 
have  feared  that  his  wretched  inability  to  realize  his  own 
aspirations  would  either  make  him  an  object  of  hopeless 
unconcern  to  others,  or  else  bring  on  him  from  them  the 
same  dislike  and  condemnation  he  visited  on  himself. 


346  SKETCHES   OF   LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

This  is  a  very  original  and  interesting  trait.  The  class  to 
whom  it  belongs  is  of  the  rarest.  He  looked  not  down 
seeking  the  uplifted  eye  of  homage  ;  he  looked  up  for  the 
condescending  eye  of  love.  Most  persons  crave  admira- 
tion ;  he  craved  compassion.  He  had  none  of  that  in- 
domitable haughtiness  which  owns  not  a  master  and  longs 
to  see  the  world  at  its  feet ;  his  self-love  rather  delighted 
to  feast  on  praises.  Avid  of  celebrity,  according  to  his 
own  confession,  he  was  more  sensitive  to  scorn  than  to 
any  other  injury.  With  this  softer  kind  of  pride,  he  had 
the  strongest  feeling  of  his  own  wretched  nothingness. 
With  a  humility  extremely  affecting  under  the  circum- 
stances, "  he  thought  he  could  be  loved  only  by  a  soul 
fond  of  stooping  to  an  inferior,  —  a  strong  soul  desirous 
of  bending  to  a  feeble  one,  not  to  adore,  but  to  serve,  to 
console,  to  protect,  as  one  does  for  the  sick,  —  a  soul  en- 
dowed with  a  sensibility  as  lowly  as  it  is  profound,  which 
strips  off  the  pride  so  natural  even  to  love,  in  order  to 
put  on  the  shroud  of  an  obscure  affection  which  the  world 
will  not  notice ;  to.  consecrate  itself  to  a  creature  all 
weak,  languishing,  and  interior ;  to  concentrate  all  its  rays 
on  a  flower  without  brilliance,  —  a  tremulous  and  sorry 
flower,  which  returns  to  it  indeed  those  perfumes  whose 
sweetness  charms  and  penetrates,  but  not  those  which 
intoxicate  and  exalt  to  the  happy  madness  of  rapture." 

Guerin  strove  heroically  to  conquer  his  misery;  but 
there  were  fatal  errors  in  his  methods.  He  needed  spir- 
itual rest,  that  his  organism  might  accumulate  force  ;  but 
he  kept  up  an  incessant  spiritual  activity,  an  uninter- 
rupted waste.  "  My  thought  is  ever  passing  in  review 
things  present  and  things  absent ;  and,  always  carrying 
with  itself  the  image  of  death,  spreads  a  funeral  veil  over 
the  world,  and  never  brings  any  object  before  me  on  its 
smiling  side."  A  wearing  intellectual  anxiety  usurped 
the  place  of  the  leisurely  and  complacent  assimilation  of 
intellectual  nourishment  which  he  needed.  Instead  of 
sedulously  cultivating  every  means  of  avoiding  introspec- 
tive and  critical  thought,  to  give  room  for  repose  and  re- 
cuperation, the  worse  he  suffered  the  more  he  analyzed 
and  criticised,  still  adding  to  the  already  excessive  ex- 
haustion. 


MAURICE   DE   GUERIN.  347 

The  style  of  his  thinking  was  as  much  at  fault  as  its 
persistency.  If  he  could  have  made  his  transitions  of 
thought,  outward  and  upward,  to  rest  on  great  objects  of 
peace,  permanent  standards  of  duty  and  good,  his  ideas 
would  have  reacted  wholesomely  on  his  body,  radiating 
a  tonic  refreshment  through  the  nervous  system.  But,  as 
the  last  direction  of  his  prevailing  modes  of  mental  asso- 
ciation was  inward  and  downward,  returning  from  the 
ideal  to  the  actual,  and  stopping  at  last  on  personal  de- 
fects and  longings,  his  ideas  were  constantly  shedding 
back  irritating  and  melancholy  influences  on  the  body. 
He  says,  "  The  idea  of  existence  necessarily  evokes  the 
idea  of  death.  And,  passing  from  the  destiny  and  fragility 
of  man  to  his  interior  miseries,  to  the  eternal  trouble  of 
his  heart,  to  the  agonies  which  his  passions  cause,  to  that 
astonishing  mixture  of  haughtiness  and  weakness,  of 
grandeur  and  degradation,  of  complaints  and  hopes,  of 
finite  and  infinite,  of  perishable  and  immortal,  —  who  can 
say,  after  having  thus  studied  and  dissected  man,  —  who 
can  say,  I  am  happy  here  ? "  Nothing  can  be  more  mor- 
bid and  pernicious  than  this  manner  of  thinking.  It  uses 
reason  and  imagination  to  aggravate  the  ills  of  our  lot,  by 
ideally  multiplying,  intensifying,  and  extending  them  ; 
whereas  reason  and  imagination  are  properly  used  when 
they  supplement  the  poverty  and  neutralize  the  hurts  of 
the  soul  by  taking  our  attention  momentarily  off  from 
petty  errors,  defeats,  and  woes,  and  fixing  it  permanently 
on  the  grand  truths,  triumphs,  and  blessedness  of  exist- 
ence. He  thought  too  much  :  he  should  have  trustfully 
fallen  back  on  rest.  He  thought  too  brain-sickly,  turning 
from  what  ought  to  be,  to  what  is  :  he  should  in  his 
thought  have  turned  from  what  is  to  what  ought  to  be, 
and  gained  serenity  from  the  serene  ideal. 

Another  injurious  mistake  he  made  was  in  the  everlast- 
ing diagnosis  of  himself,  the  ceaseless  fingering  of  his 
mer.'.al  wounds.  He  knew  and  described  his  own  case 
with  such  profound  exactness  that  it  is  surprising  he  did 
not  see  the  cure.  That  he  did  not  perceive  and  practise 
the  true  treatment  for  his  disease  was,  however,  less  his 
fault  than  the  fault  of  the  morbid  theology  and  ethics  in 


348       SKETCHES  OF  LONELV  CHARACTERS. 

which  he  was  trained.  He  followed  the  same  course  with 
Petrarch,  Pascal,  and  scores  of  other  examples  of  un- 
happy genius  in  modern  times.  Their  panacea  was  self- 
contempt,  detachment,  denial,  annihilation.  Our  desires 
torment  us  :  let  us  renounce  them,  destroy  them,  die  out 
of  ourselves  into  a  patient  waiting  for  God  to  redeem 
us  in  eternity !  "  My  God  ! "  exclaims  Guerin,  "  what  I 
suffer  from  life !  not  in  its  accidents,  a  little  philosophy 
suffices  there  ;  but  in  its  very  substance.  As  I  go  on  in 
age,  my  spirit  drops  a  thousand  spoils  upon  its  path,  ties 
break,  prejudices  fall,  I  begin  to  show  my  head  above  the 
flood  ;  but  existence  itself  remains  bound,  — always  the 
same  dolorous  point  marking  the  centre  from  the  circum- 
ference. O  Stoicism  !  founded  to  combat  grief  by  firm- 
ness of  soul,  who  only  knewest  to  combat  life  by  death,  — 
we  have  not  yet  gone  a  single  step  beyond  thee."  But 
surely  death  is  not  the  cure  for  the  ills  of  life  :  it  is  their 
close.  The  genuine  remedy  for  the  disturbances  of  the 
soul  is  the  healthy  attunement  of  the  discordant  faculties 
and  forces  of  the  soul.  Not  denial,  but  fulfilment,  is  the 
real  key  to  content.  The  genius  of  the  Christian  period 
is  characterized  by  an  unprecedented  development  of 
sensibility,  —  sensibility  to  finer  and  larger  standards  of 
good.  Now,  the  keener,  the  more  numerous,  the  wider 
the  ranks  and  ranges  of  obligation  and  desire  of  which 
the  soul  is  susceptible,  so  much  the  greater  its  exposures 
to  confusion,  interior  conflict,  fermentation,  —  in  a  word, 
unhappiness.  Sympathy  is  the  crude  mateiial  of  our 
moral  nature.  All  the  standards  of  good  which  sympa- 
thy can  recognize  are  elementary  powers  to  be  taken  up 
and  organized  into  a  firm  and  mature  conscience.  Then 
a  stable  self-con sisteucy  and  concord  will  result.  Human 
life  is  "the  continuous  adjustment  of  internal  relations 
with  external  relations,"  or  the  reflection  of  nature  in 
us.  The  attempt  to  invert  it,  and  make  nature  reflect 
us,  adjust  her  laws  to  our  desires,  must  lead  to  misery. 
The  purpose  of  human  life  is  the  fruition  of  the  functions 
of  our  being  in  proper  co-ordination.  Let  any  man 
fulfil  the  functions  of  all  his  faculties  in  their  due  hie- 
rarchical order,  and  he  will  be  happy,  because  there  will 


MAURICE   DE   GUERIN.  349 

be  no  war  in  him.  Interior  unison,  self-iespect,  and 
complacency  are  the  indispensable  foundations  of  happi- 
ness, though  they  are  not  attainable  while  nebulous 
expanses  of  sympathy  are  floating,  meteoric  masses  of 
passion  darting  about,  in  the  soul. 

When  Maurice  de  Guerin  strove  to  escape  his  misery 
by  denying  his  ambition,  scourging  down  his  aspirations, 
and  courting  an  apathetic  resignation,  he  only  made  his 
state  worse.  His  true  refuge  would  have  been  harmony 
and  fulfilment,  with  quiet  submission  to  the  inevitable. 
"  I  die  secretly  every  day  :  my  life  escapes  through  invis- 
ible pricks.  Some  one  told  me  that  contempt  for  man- 
kind would  carry  me  far ;  yes,  and  especially  if  sourness 
mingles  with  it.  Every  profession  disgusts,  every  object 
fatigues  me.  I  am  irritated  with  the  men  who  are  still 
children.  I  hate  myself  in  these  miseries,  which  give  me 
the  most  violent  desires  to  leap  on  a  free  shore,  and 
spurn  the  hateful  boat  that  bears  me.  I  laugh  my  pre- 
tensions to  scorn.  I  scoff  at  my  imagination,  which,  like 
the  tortoise,  would  journey  through  the  air.  I  ridicule 
the  superb  ego  which  vainly  kicks  against  the  goads  of 
interior  sarcasm.  I  bite  myself,  as  the  scorpion  in  the 
brazier,  to  end  more  quickly." 

If  he  could  have  ceased  to  think  upon  himself  so  disat- 
isfiedly,  broken  the  gnawing  bondage  of  self-conscious- 
ness, and  rested  calmly  in  a  contemplation  of  the  ever- 
lasting laws  of  beauty,  goodness,  and  joy  on  which  all 
creation  reposes,  he  would  have  lost  his  misery.  There 
was  no  other  cure. 

In  such  occasional  passages  as  the  following,  he  ap- 
pears himself  to  have  seen  this  :  "  My  God !  how  we 
distress  ourselves  with  our  isolation  !  I  was  a  long  time 
possessed  by  this  madness.  It  was  because  I ~  lived 
wrongly,  and  established  false  relations  between  creatures 
and  my  soul,  that  I  suffered  so  mudh,  and  that  the  crea- 
tion repelled  me  from  its  joys.  I  wasted  myself  in  a 
profound  solitude  :  the  earth  seemed  to  me  worse  than  a 
desert  isle  all  naked  in  the  bosom  of  a  savage  ocean.  It 
was  a  silence  to  make  one  afraid.  Madness,  pure  mad- 
ness !  There  is  no  isolation  for  him  who  knows  how  to 


35°  SKETCHES   OF    LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

take  his  place  in  the  universal  harmony,  and  to  open  his 
soul  to  all  the  impressions  of  this  harmony.  Then  one 
comes  to  feel,  almost  physically,  that  one  lives  for  God 
and  in  God." 

One  half  the  soul  of  Maurice  de  Guerin  alone  was 
partly  plunged  in  evil  •  the  other  half  ever  remained  in- 
accessible to  stains,  high  and  calm,  amassing  drop  by 
drop  the  poetry  he  hoped  afterwards  to  shed  on  the 
world.  The  beauty  of  his  descriptions  of  nature  is 
almost  unapproachable.  The  many  paragraphs  from  his 
pen  on  friendship  have  a  tone  of  penetrative  sincerity 
and  sweetness.  The  sufferings  incident  to  his  over-sensi- 
tive spirit  plaintively  reconcile  us  to  the  earliness  of  his 
death.  One  easily  transfers  to  him  the  anecdote  he  has 
related  of  his  master  Lamennais.  On  a  summer  day  the 
mournful  prophet  sat  with  Maurice  under  two  Scotch  firs, 
behind  the  chapel  at  La  Chenaie.  Drawing  with  his 
staff  the  form  of  a  grave  in  the  turf,  he  said,  "  It  is  there 
that  I  wish  to  rest ;  but  no  sepulchral  stone,  only  a  bank 
of  grass.  O,  how  well  I  shall  be  there ! "  He  teaches 
us,  both  by  what  he  has  written  and  by  what  he  was, 
many  a  striking  lesson  from  which  souls  finely  made  and 
finely  exposed  may  profit.  He  was  one  of  those  mental- 
ly impassioned  persons,  —  not  physically  impassioned,  — 
the  victims  of  consumption,  who  appeal  so  profoundly  to 
our  sympathy ;  whose  lungs,  material  and  spiritual,  seem 
woven  of  a  texture  so  gauzy  that  the  common  air  of  life 
works  on  it  like  a  corrosive  fire,  who  need  the  more  dis- 
tilled and  aromatic  breath  of  love  to  sustain  and  feed 
them,  and  who  fade  away  into  the  one  great  good  of 
eternity,  with  outstretched  arms  and  vain  longings  after 
the  many  little  goods  of  time. 


HEGEL. 

THE  great  philosophers  leading  an  absorbed  inner  life, 
with  their  metaphysical  systems,  bodies  of  thought  hope- 
lessly unintelligible  to  ordinary  minds,  form  a  class  of 
lonely  men.  Such  was  Heraclitus,  nicknamed  the  dark, 


HEGEL.  35 1 

declaring  that  nothing  is,  but  that  all  flows  ;  in  other 
words,  that  being  is  not  a  station  but  a  motion  ;  a  per- 
petual becoming :  so  that  no  one  ever  crosses  the  same 
stream,  or  sees  the  same  picture,  twice.  Such  was  Py- 
thagoras, with  his  esoteric  mathematics,  his  secret  society, 
his  long  novitiate  of  silence,  occult  instructions  and  signs. 
Such  was  Parmenides,  with  his  unfathomable  propound- 
ing of  the  One.  Such  were  Plotinus  and  Proclus,  with 
their  super-refinement  of  bewildering  speculations  as  to  the 
phenomenal  and  the  real,  the  transient  and  the  eternal, 
multiplicity  and  unity.  Such  were  the  unknown  founders 
of  the  oriental  idealism,  whose  view  of  things  was-  an  in- 
tellectual alkahest,  melting  the  universe  into  an  idea. 
Such  were  the  mystics,  like  Dschelaleddin  Rumy,  to 
whom  the  whole  of  things  was  an  intoxicating  dream,  or 
a  vision  of  self-identifying  bliss. 

It  is  clear  enough  that  not  one  out  of  millions  can  enter 
appreciatingly  into  the  mood  expressed  in  the  following 
lines  :  — 

The  Loved  One  bears  the  cup,  and  sells  annihilation  ; 
Who  buys  his  fire  ecstatic,  quaffs  illumination. 
He  comes,  — a  flood  of  molten  music  round  him  gushing ; 
He  comes,  — all  veils  are  raised,  the  universe  lies  blushing. 
I  snatch  the  cup,  and,  lipless.  quaff  the  Godhead's  liquor, 
And  into  unity  of  bliss  the  self-lights  flicker. 

It  is  probable  that  still  fewer  are  capable  of  understand- 
ing the  absolute  idealism  of  Hegel.  His  learning  is  so 
vast,  his  analysis  so  remorseless,  his  abstractions  so 
transcendental,  his  terminology  so  abstrusely  knotty,  his 
synthesis  so  all-comprehensive,  that  his  system  is  the 
standing  scandal  of  students,  baffling  all  but  the  very  best- 
equipped  and  toughest  thinkers.  He  claims  to  have 
made  metaphysics  an  exhaustive  science,  a  closed  circle 
of  circles.  He  begins  with  Being  as  the  absolute  Affirma- 
tion, and  Nothing  as  the  absolute  Negation,  and  shows 
their  identity  in  Becoming.  He  proceeds,  through  a  con- 
stant reconciliation-  of  the  contradictory  pairs  between 
which  alone  thought  can  exist,  to  the  conclusion  that  the  All 
is  a  thought,  and  that  every  genuine  thought  which  pene- 
trates to  know  itself  is  the  All.  It  is,  whether  true  or 


352       SKETCHES  OF  LONELY  CHARACTERS. 

false,  in  subtilty  and  comprehensiveness  as  tremendous  a 
piece  of  thinking  as  was  ever  performed  by  a  human 
head.  The  popular  inability  to  comprehend  what  he  said 
left  him  by  himself.  He  declared,  "  Only  one  man  under- 
stands me,  and  he  misunderstands  me." 

To  master  his  system  requires  as  special  an  intelligence 
and  training  as  to  master  the  Fluxions  of  Newton,  and  in 
a  far  higher  degree.  Yet  those  least  fitted  to  judge  are 
frequently  the  readiest  to  assume  superiority,  and  to  name 
his  industry  charlatanry  or  folly.  No  one  who  is  yet  lin- 
gering in  rudimentary  arithmetic  will  presume  to  call  the 
geometrical  calculus  an  empty  imposition  ;  he  knows  it  to 
be  unmeaning  only  to  his  ignorance.  But  it  is  quite  cus- 
tomary for  one  who  in  philosophy  has  not  finished  simple 
numeration  to  stigmatize  the  metaphysical  calculus  of 
Hegel  as  little  better  than  idiotic  jargon.  Common 
sense,  which  is  the  rule  of  mental  averages,  seeing  how 
far  he  varies  from  it,  complacently  considers  him  a  fool. 
No  wonder  his  speech  is  cutting  and  caustic  with  irony 
towards  the  intellectual  pygmies  who  stumble  at  his  out- 
works, and  fancy  themselves  stalking  above  him  when 
really  dealing  with  their  own  dwarfed  reflections  of  him. 
His  system  maybe  illegitimate  science,  it  is  certainly  fruit- 
ful gymnastics,  a  tremendous  regimen  of  mental  enlarge- 
ment, mental  emancipation,  mental  enrichment.  The 
complacency  of  those  who  have  neither  taste  nor  faculty 
for  such  studies,  nor  modesty  to  feel  their  failure,  often 
leads  them  to  stigmatize  him  as  an  impostor  and  his  pro- 
duct as  emptiness. 

But  he,  meanwhile,  —  where  is  he?  Occupied  with  his 
own  indomitable  effort  to  understand  everything,  to  leave 
absolutely  no  mystery  uncleared,  to  know  even  God  him- 
self, he  is  "  out  in  the  void  desert,  separated  from  the 
world  of  man  by  endless  days  and  nights,  and  eternally 
recurrent  and  repeating  solitudes,  lonely,  mysterious,  in- 
explicable, a  giant  dreamland,  where  the  sense  of  Being 
and  the  sense  of  Nothing,  like  two  boundless  vapors  con- 
fronting each  other,  the  infinite  vaporous  warp  and  the 
infinite  vaporous  woof,  melting,  interpenetrating,  wave 
and  weave  together,  waft  and  waver  apart,  to  wave  and 


HEGEL.  353 

weave  together  again.  He  has  wrested  himself  from  the 
place  of  mere  mortals,  on  the  outside,  groping  into  con- 
crete delusions  ;  he  sits  in  the  centre  of  pure  thought, 
and  sees  an  immense  magical  hollow  universe  construct 
itself  around.  Does  he  not  come  out  from  the  centre  of 
that  world,  that  secret  chamber  of  his,  begrimed  with 
powder,  smelling  of  sulphur,  like  some  haggard  conjurer, 
his  voice  sepulchral,  his  accent  foreign,  his  laugh  demoni- 
acal ?  Contrast  him  with  the  simple,  pious  soul,  on  the 
green  earth,  in  the  bright  fresh  air,  industrious,  loving, 
penitent,  sure  of  a  better  world  and  a  better  life  !" 

To  the  ignorant  eye  of  unsophisticated  trust  he  would 
thus  seem  to  be  at  a  sore  disadvantage.  But  the  reverse 
is  the  truth  that  —  according  to  his  own  view  —  appears 
to  perfected  insight.  For  the  obvious  little  that  he  loses 
he  gains  an  occult  infinitude.  By  his  rounded  survey  of 
human  thinking  and  natural  phenomena,  penetrating  from 
nadir  to  zenith,  he  knows  his  own  incommensurate  intel- 
lectual superiority  to  other  men.  He  can  understand 
them  and  their  errors ;  they  cannot  understand  him  or 
apprehend  his  certainties.  He  has  drawn  a  circle  around 
their  outermost,  sunk  a  shaft  underneath  their  lowermost. 
The  scores  which  to  them  are  series  of  blind  hieroglyph- 
ics he  has  the  key  to  read  off  into  music.  The  poor  de- 
lusions in  which  they  are  enveloped,  and  to  whose  vul- 
gar promises  they  cling,  have  scaled  from  him  and  left 
him  to  grasp  the  divine  prizes  which  these  had  but  de- 
graded by  their  mocking  simulations.  Instead  of  remain- 
ing content,  as  they  foolishly  do,  with  the  verbal  phantoms 
of  God,  freedom,  and  immortality,  he  grasps  the  immedi- 
ate substance  of  the  thoughts  themselves,  seeing  God  in 
that  process  of  universal  Spirit  which  plays  through  the 
universe,  realizing  freedom  in  the  consciousness  of  his 
own  powers,  and  possessing  immortality  in  the  indestruc 
tibleness  of  all  that  really  is.  Thus  where  common  men 
see  hideousness  and  horror,  he  sees  beauty  and  boon. 
Where  they  shrink  from  necessity  and  nihilism,  he  aspires 
to  substantial  liberty  and  infinity.  What  they  interpret 
in  their  spurious  mythological  conceptions  as  the  riot  of 
the  worm  and  the  blackness  of  the  grave,  he  recognizes 


354  SKETCHES   OF   LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

as  the  fruition  of  eternity  and  the  splendor  of  the  god- 
head. They  cloak  the  omnipresent  climax  of  contradic- 
tions with  the  sprawling  sophistry  of  ignorance  ;  but  he 
with  logical  dialectic  probes  the  problem  to  its  solution 
in  reciprocal  identity.  Thinking  his  way  irresistibly 
through,  from  the  beginning  to  the  end,  he  sees  that  the 
logic  of  thought  is  the  logic  of  things,  the  ideality  of  man 
a  reflection  of  the  reality  of  nature,  the  reality  of  nature  i 
reflection  of  the  ideality  of  God,  and  all  these  at  bottom 
identical,  just  as  man  sees  in  the  mirror  not  a  reflection 
of  himself,  but  himself  on  the  curving  beams  of  light. 
This  is  the  way  it  seemed  to  Hegel. 

The  builder,  occupant,  and  master  of  such  a  system  of 
thought  is  a  spiritual  hero  and  monarch  of  the  world,  a 
conqueror  of  destiny,  who  has  put  all  things  under  his 
feet.  But  in  the  weird  spaces  of  its  amplitude,  if  not 
divinely  companioned,  he  must  be  awfully  alone.  So  far 
as  any  intelligent  sympathy  from  the  average  order  of 
men  is  concerned,  he  would  be  as  much  alone  in  the 
academy  of  Berlin  as  by  the  flaming  crown  of  Hecla  or 
at  the  frozen  core  of  the  Antarctic.  To  the  ordinary 
mind,  man  is  both  a  product  and  a  beholder  of  the  out- 
ward world.  To  the  idealist,  he  is  a  seeing  producer  of 
the  world.  To  Hegel,  the  mature  philosopher  is  at  once 
a  product  and  a  producer  of  the  world  ;  he  is  both  the 
seer  and  the  sight ;  his'consciousness,  unified  with  primal 
thought,  begetting  everything  out  of  itself.  In  his  Logic 
he  constructs,  a  priori,  the  autobiography  of  God  as  He 
is  in  his  eternal  being  ;  the  history  of  the  Absolute  Spirit, 
from  the  beginning,  when  He  was  alone,  without  any  cre- 
ation or  finite  spirit,  to  the  end,  when  "He  quaffs  His  own 
conscious  infinity  from  the  cup  of  the  kingdom  of  finite 
minds."  It  is  true  that  this  is  wonderful  speculation,  — 
wonderful  in  its  power  and  in  the  magnitude  of  its  con- 
cerns. It  may  justly  be  considered  by  every  modest 
man  as  unbecoming  presumption.  But  it  cannot  properly 
be  treated  as  puerile  chatter.  Its  master,  as  compared 
with  common  men,  is  not  an  audacious  baby  alone  in  his 
nursery  with  a  toy,  but  an  intellectual  king  alone  on  his 
mighty  altitude  with  the  universe. 


HEGEL.  355 

The  Hegelian  metaphysics  may  be  a  baseless  phantasy. 
Those  who  do  not  understand  it  nor  know  its  historic 
development  as  the  completion  of  foregone  systems,  may 
scout  it  as  foolishness.  But  it  was  a  reality  to  Hegel,  and 
its  inferences  were  realities  to  him.  It  is  as  strenuous  an 
effort,  as  stupendous  a  construction,  as  is  seen  anywhere 
in  the  history  of  thought.  And  only  by  an  incredible 
irony  can  one  who  appreciates  it  believe,  that  when  its 
author  had  finished  his  work,  and  was  identifyingly 
elevated  to  "absolute  knowledge,"  the  cholera  grabbed 
this  "infinite  God"  by  the  bowels  and  dragged  him  into 
the  grave.  Surely  such  was  the  fate  of  the  body  of  Hegel. 
Surely  the  spirit,  the  force,  the  begriff  that  was  Hegel,  is 
Hegel  still,  and  does  not  moulder  under  the  sod  of  the 
Prussian  churchyard. 

Life,  like  a  dome  of  many-colored  glass, 
Stains  the  white  radiance  of  eternity, 
Until  Death  tramples  it  to  fragments. 

What  journeys  he  travels,  what  toils  he  undergoes,  what 
adventures  he  encounters,  who  makes  mental  pilgrimages 
to  the  spiritual  shrines  and  landscapes  of  all  the  great 
thinkers  of  the  world !  Mastering  the  chief  efforts  of 
mankind  to  solve  the  problem  of  being,  he  leaves  far 
away  the  multitude  who  do  not  so  much  as  guess  that 
there  is  any  such  problem  to  solve.  He  sails  over  the 
"water"  of  Thales ;  soars  through  the  "air"  of  Anax- 
imenes  ;  reasons  to  the  "  mind  "  of  Anaxagoras  ;  sees 
the  "atoms"  of  Leucippus  flying  into  groups;  studies 
the  occult  powers  of  the  "  numbers "  of  Pythagoras  ; 
contemplates  the  archetypal  "  ideas "  of  Plato ;  busies 
himself  with  the  "  entelechies "  and  "  categories,"  the 
"  matter "  and  "  form  "  of  Aristotle  ;  comprehends  the 
"  artistic  fire  "  of  Chrysippus ;  plunges  into  the  ontolog- 
ical  "  ecstasy "  of  lamblichus  ;  and  gazes  with  tranced 
intuition  into  the  "  nirwa"na "  of  Gotama.  With  Des 
Cartes,  sceptically  stripping  himself  of  all  opinion  and 
prejudice,  all  but  the  two  notions  of  "thought"  and  "ex- 
tension," he  perceives- that  the  essence  of  these  is  their 
reciprocal  negation,  the  answer  to  What  is  matter  ?  being, 
Never  mind  !  to  What  is  mind  ?  No  matter  !  and  proceeds 


356       SKETCHES  OF  LONELY  CHARACTERS. 

thence  by  successive  steps  to  universal  truth.  With 
Spino7i,  he  converts  thought  and  extension  into  attributes 
of  one  sole  "  substance,"  compared  to  the  lair  of  a  lion 
which  many  footsteps  enter,  but  none  leave,  —  individual 
entities  blotted  into  the  all-subsisting  God.  Passing  on 
to  Leibnitz,  he  conceives  an  infinity  of  "monads,"  each 
monad  an  obscure  mirror  of  the  creation,  a  little  God, 
and  with  these  builds  a  dynamic  universe.  Then  come 
the  intelligible  "  phenomena,"  and  the  forever  inappre- 
hensible "  noumena "  of  Kant ;  the  "  reals,"  and  the 
standards  for  "  remodelling  the  conceptions  of  expe- 
rience," of  Herbert ;  the  "  I "  and  the  "  Not  I,"  or  the 
creation  as  a  self-limitation  of  the  ego,  of  Fichte  ;  the 
various  phases  of  the  "  identity-system,"  or  objective 
transcendentalism,  of  Schelling  ;  the  "  absolute  idealism," 
or  development  of  self-consciousness  to  a  height  where  it 
logically  constructs  the  universe,  of  Hegel ;  the  wishful 
dynamism,  or  "  world-as-conception-and-will,"  of  Scho- 
penhauer; the  manifestation  of  "modes  of  force"  in 
"  forms  of  matter,"  or  summing  of  all  that  can  be  known 
in  a  "  law  of  evolution,"  of  Spencer. 

To  travel  in  mental  space  to  these  mighty  monuments 
of  thought  and  aspiration,  and  a  score  of  other  kindred 
ones,  traverse  their  labyrinthine  apartments,  and  compre- 
hend their  contents  by  reproducingly  entering  into  their 
genesis  and  development,  is  an  achievement  that  few 
have  the  desire,  the  leisure,  the  patience,  and  the  power 
to  accomplish.  What  prouder  ambition  can  any  man 
cherish  than  the  purpose  to  do  this?  to  advance  with 
assimilating  docility  along  the  biographic  line  of  human 
thinking,  through  the  schools  of  the  Ionics,  the  Eleatics, 
the  Socraticists,  the  Neoplatonists,  the  Scholastics,  the 
Mystics,  the  Spiritualists,  the  Materialists,  the  Positivists, 
and,  with  the  healthy  mastership  of  it  all,  emerge  at  last 
under  the  blue  empyrean  of  reality,  where  science  and 
faith  preside  together  with  a  cheerful  acquiescence  in 
each  other's  functions.  It  is  the  romance  of  the  mind, 
the  interior  epic  of  humanity.  Every  master  of  it  is 
thereby  mentally  isolated,  since  he  lives  in  a  world  of 
thought  which  the  ignorant  can  hardly  enter ;  possesses, 


HEGEL.  357 

for  attachment  to  every  object  he  regards  and  every 
state  of  consciousness  he  feels,  a  complicated  mass  of  as- 
sociations of  which  they  never  dream.  He  looks  serenely 
down  on  the  petty  brawls  of  the  selfish  and  the  idle  mis- 
givings of  the  credulous.  If  he  is  a  good  man,  as  ripe  in 
characteristic  wisdom  as  in  learned  study,  .he  occupies,  in 
the  words  of  Martineau,  "  an  intellectual  eminence  above 
surprise,  whence  the  great  movements  of  humanity  can  be 
watched  in  the  quiet  air  of  piety  and  trust,  and  where  the 
distant  voices  of  its  prayer  and  strife  cannot  reach  him." 
The  turmoils  and  uproars  of  the  world  are  reflected  to 
him  as  silent  pictures.  He  has  reached  to  the  calm  which 
lies  at  the  centre  of  agitation,  the  heart  of  the  hurricane  of 
the  forces  of  time.  Let  it  not  be  said  that  the  unsophisticat- 
ed peasant,  who  simply  trusts  in  the  name  of  Jesus,  is  bet- 
ter off  than  this  man.  He  too  has  a  pious  trust  none  the 
less  firm  in  its  blessedness.  Recognizing  all  things  "  in 
the  diamond  net  of  one  perfect  law,"  he  beholds  himself 
as  an  intelligent -emergence  from  the  unknowable,  deal- 
ing for  a  season  with  phenomenal  relations,  and  re-enter- 
ing the  unknowable.  He  thrills  with  adoration  before 
the  spectacle,  and  rests  peacefully  in  his  own  thought. 
It  is  his  fault  if  he  is  not  as  much  superior  in  sentiment 
and  faith  to  the  mere  innocent  believer  as  he  is  more 
favored  in  vision.  His  ideal  sweeps  of  disinterested  sym- 
pathy, of  joyous  and  worshipping  affection,  as  well  as  of 
intellectual  contemplation,  should  be  comparable  with  the 
experience  of  that  bold  aeronaut,  who,  while  others  were 
toiling  in  their  low  nooks  or  asleep  in  their  beds,  made  in 
seventeen  hours  a  balloon  flight  of  five  hundred  miles, 
from  London  to  Weilburg,  in  Nassau,  —  the  passage  over 
the  dark  sea,  and  the  Belgian  district  of  furnaces,  the  sea 
of  mist  below  in  the  morning,  with  the  rustling  of  forests 
coining  up  like  the  sound  of  waves  on  the  beach,  the  paling 
of  the  stars,  the  gorgeous  sunrise  shedding  its  colors  over 
the  vast  heavens  and  the  earth  far  underneath,  yielding 
him  sensations  inexpressibly  solemn  and  beautiful. 


358  SKETCHES   OF   LONELY  CHARACTERS. 


SCHOPENHAUER. 

ONE  of  the  most  vigorous  and  piquant  writers,  bold 
thinkers,  snappish  and  gloomy  spirits  of  our  century  was 
Arthur  Schopenhauer,  the  German  philosopher,  who  died 
at  Frankfort  in  1860.  Among  the  many  strong  and 
strange  qualities  of  his  character,  loneliness  was,  per- 
haps, the  most  prominent,  almost  from  the  cradle  to  the 
grave.  He  was  imaginatively  suspicious  and  timid,  proud 
and  shy,  with  an  astounding  assurance  of  his  own  great- 
ness and  noble  destiny,  and  at  the  same  time  with  a 
furious  moral  irritability,  and  a  morbid  physical  coward- 
ice. He  was  a  most  singular  being,  interesting  and  odi- 
ous, wise  and  absurd,  endowed  with  a  gigantic  intellect 
which  shrank  from  no  problem  or  conclusion,  and  vehe- 
ment affections  discordant  among  themselves  and  awry 
towards  the  world.  His  tender  need  of  sympathy  and 
fierce  craving  for  success  balked  and  thrust  back,  made 
him  feel  deserted,  a  sort  of  outcast ;  his  subsequent  curd- 
ling hate  and  scorn,  and  wilful  hardening  of  his  heart  in 
haughty  self-protection,  made  him  feel  doubly  isolated. 
His  biographer  says  :  "  Although  remaining  in  the  midst 
of  society,  never  has  a  man  felt  more  separated  and  alone 
than  Schopenhauer.  The  Indian  anchorite  is  a  social 
being  in  comparison  with  him  ;  for  the  solitude  of  the 
former  is  accidental,  or  rests  on  practical  motives  ;  with 
him  it  was  essential  and  the  result  of  knowledge.  There- 
fore this  feeling  in  his  consciousness  reached  an  intensive 
strength  which  admits  of  no  comparison  with  mere  retire- 
ment." 

As  soon  as  he  began  to  think,  he  seems  to  have  found 
an  impassable  chasm  between  himself  and  the  world ; 
astronomic  distances  divided  him  from  those  whom  he 
should  live  with  and  love.  At  first  he  feared  the  differ- 
ence and  opposition  were  his  fault,  and  this  often  filled 
him  with  sadness.  But  his  native  pride  and  complacency, 
strengthened  by  a  constant  feeding  on  the  ideas  of  kin- 
dred spirits  in  literature,  —  such  as  Machiavelfi,  Rochefou- 
cauld, Chamfort,  —  caused  the  world  to  lose,  his  self-esteem 


SCHOPENHAUER.  359 

to  gain,  something  with  each  conflict.  Up  to  his  fortieth 
year  he  had  felt  frightfully  lonesome,  and  had  continually 
sighed,  "  Give  me  a  friend."  In  vain  !  He  still  remained 
solitary.  But  now,  after  such  incessant  disappointment, 
he  concluded  that  humanity  was  infinitely  more  penurious 
than  he  had  imagined,  looked  around  on  the  earth  as  on 
a  desert,  made  up  his  mind  firmly  that  he  was  one  of  the 
intellectual  rulers  of  the  race,  and  that  he  must  bear  his 
royal  solitude  with  dignity  and  patience.  He  said  men 
shrunk  from  seclusion  and  sought  association  because 
they  were  so  poor  and  empty.  They  and  their  society 
reminded  him  of  Russian  horn-music,  wherein  each  horn 
can  sound  but  one  note,  and  a  whole  band  is  neces- 
sary to  play  a  tune.  The  rich,  many-toned  wise  man  is 
a  piano-forte,  a  little  orchestra  in  himself.  From  this  time 
he  became  systematically  unsocial,  and  appeared  deliber- 
ately to  nourish  by  all  means  the  worst  possible  views  of 
life  and  men.  Desiring  fame  with  an  eagerness  propor- 
tioned to  his  estimate  of  his  rank  and  of  the  value  of  his 
system  of  philosophy,  he  sought  to  cover  and  soothe  his 
bitter  chagrin  at  its  long  delay,  by  casting  contempt  on 
it,  and  expressing  disgust  at  the  mixed  and  unworthy 
throng  who  most  easily  gain  it.  "  Fame  is  an  existence 
in  the  heads  of  others,  —  a  wretched  theatre  ;  and  its  hap- 
piness is  purely  chimerical.  What  a  rabble  crowds  into 
its  temple,  of  soldiers,  ministers,  quacks,  gymnasts,  and 
millionnaires  !" 

It  is  a  proof  of  his  originally  deep  and  high  heart,  that 
while  the  men  around  him  were  so  empty  and  repulsive 
to  him,  he  lived  in  delightful  intimacy  with  the  great 
minds  of  previous  times.  The  thoughts  left  behind  by 
those  great  men,  who,  like  himself,  were  alone  amidst 
their  contemporaries,  were  his  keenest  enjoyment.  Their 
writings  came  to  him  as  letters  from  his  home  and  kin- 
dred to  one  banished  and  wandering  among  islands  des- 
titute of  men,  but  where  all  the  trees  are  full  of  apes  and 
parrots.  That  he  should  have  used  such  an  illustration 
as  the  foregoing,  also  proves  how  sorely  wrenched  and 
irritated  his  heart  had  become.  In  ethics  a  graduate  and 
continuator  of  the  school  of  Plato  and  Kant,  he  defined 


3 bO  SKETCHES   OF   LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

the  worst  man  as  the  one  who  makes  the  greatest  dis- 
tinction between  himself  and  others ;  the  best  man  as 
the  one  who  makes  the  least  distinction  between  himself 
and  others.  But  his  practice  amazingly  violated  his  in 
sight.  In  all  his  habitual  modes  of  personal  thought  and 
feeling,  instead  of  minimizing  he  maximized  the  distinc- 
tion of  himself  from  other  men. 

During  the  latter  half  of  his  life  he  considered  every 
contact  with  men  a  contamination.  He  pretty  faithfully 
practised  his  own  precepts  wherein  he  said,  "  The  world 
is  peopled  with  pitiful  creatures,  whom  the  wise  man  is 
born  not  to  fellowship  with,  but  to  instruct.  They  are  a 
foreign  species,  with  whom  the  wisest  has  the  least  to  do, 
regarding  himself  and  deporting  himself  as  a  Brahmin 
among  Sudras  and  Pariahs."  He  would  not  ordinarily 
call  his  fellow-beings  men,  but  contemptuously,  with  a 
grim  humor  like  that  of  Carlyle,  whose  Teufelsdrock  de- 
scribes the  human  creature  as  a  "  forked  radish,"  charac- 
terizes them  as  "  bipeds,"  the  "  two-footed."  He  as- 
serted that  he  was  not  a  man-hater,  but  a  man-despiser. 
To  despise  the  species  as  they  deserve  it  was  necessary 
not  to  hate  them.  Two  classes  of  men,  however,  he  did 
hate  with  especial  relish  and  virus.  First,  the  University 
professors  of  philosophy ;  ostensibly  because  they  were 
charlatans,  dishonest  smatterers  ;  really  because  they  en- 
joyed the  place  and  attention  he  coveted  for  himself,  re- 
fused to  give  his  works  and  genius  the  tribute  he  deemed 
his  due,  and  formed  a  conspiracy,  as  he  fancied,  to  pre- 
vent all  public  recognition  of  him.  Second,  the  Opti- 
mists ;  because  their  system  seemed  a  biting  irony  in 
view  of  the  facts  of  sin,  sorrow,  and  death,  —  a  shallow 
mockery  of  the  inexpressible  wretchedness  and  emptiness 
of  existence  as  presented  by  his  theory  and  emphasized 
by  his  experience.  He  was  himself  a  Pessimist,  one  who 
reverses  the  proposition  that  this  is  the  best  of  all  possi- 
ble worlds.  The  ingenious  argument  on  which  he  based 
his  reversal  of  the  scheme  of  Leibnitz  was  this :  Life  is 
crowded  with  examples  of  discord,  baseness,  and  misery  ; 
the  whole  system  is  so  exactly  interdependent,  that  if 
the  least  feature  of  it  were  altered,  made  worse,  all  would 


bCHOPENHAUER.  361 

go  to  destruction  :  therefore,  this  is  the  worst  possible 
world  ! 

He  esteemed  himself  an  imperial  mind,  his  contribu- 
tion one  of  the  richest  the  world  had  ever  received.  At 
nineteen  he  said  he  would  become  the  philosopher  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  Forty  years  had  passed,  and  his 
books  were  lumber,  his  name  unknown.  He  rebelled 
with  injured  and  wrathful  arrogance  against  the  injustice. 
He  imagined  it  was  the  result  of  a  malignant  coalition. 
This  mischievous  conceit  worked  like  vitriol  in  his  blood, 
poisoned  all  his  peace,  aggravated  his  worse  traits,  rilled 
even  his  philosophic  works  with  savage  invectives,  and 
made  him  chuckle  with  ignoble  delight  over  the  flattering 
notices  his  books  at  last  began  to  win.  He  exclaims  :  "  I 
have  dismal  news  to  communicate  to  the  professors. 
Their  Caspar  Hauser,  whom  for  forty  years  they  had  so 
closely  immured  that  no  sound  could  betray  his  existence 
to  the  world  —  their  Caspar  Hauser  is  escaped.  Some 
even  think  he  is  a  prince.  In  plain  prose,  that  -which 
they  feared  above  all  things,  and  took  every  conceivable 
means  to  prevent,  has  befallen.  Men  begin  to  read  me, 
and  henceforth  will  not  cease." 

Ardently  wishing  the  complacent  sense  of  being  ad- 
mired and  renowned,  he  turned  angrily  against  those  who 
withheld  the  boon.  Cynically  secluded  in  Frankfort, 
neglected,  deprived  of  all  the  associations  and  sympathies 
he  most  desired,  "  a  solitary  thinker  in  a  den  of  money- 
changers, he  mused,  and  plodded,  and  nourished  the 
grudges  which  disappointment  had  engendered  in  a  nature 
predisposed  by  some  radical  vice  or  defect  to  misan- 
thropic gloom."  He  sought  to  support  himself  by  two 
artifices.  First,  by  aggrandizing  his  own  sense  of  his 
own  merit  and  of  the  sure  reward  yet  awaiting  it.  "  I 
have  lifted  the  veil  of  truth  further  than  any  mortal  before 
me.  But  I  should  like  to  see  the  man  who  could  ever 
boast  of  being  begirt  by  worse  contemporaries  than  I 
have  had."  "  The  world  has  learned  many  things  from 
me  which  it  will  never  forget."  "  Since  the  great  soap- 
bubble  blowing  of  the  Fichte-Schelling-Hegel  philosophy 
is  done/  there  is  greater  need  than  ever  of  philosophy. 
16 


362       SKETCHES  OF  LONELY  CHARACTERS. 

Now  people  will  look  about  for  solider  nourishment,  and 
this  is  to  be  found  alone  with  me  ;  for  I  am  the  only  one 
who  has  labored  purely  from  an  inner  vocation."  When 
asked  where  he  would  be  buried,  he  proudly  replied, 
"  It  matters  not ;  they  will  find  me  out." 

The  second  artifice  to  which  he  had  recourse  was  the 
sour-grapes  principle.  The  prize  is  contemptible.  The 
love  and  praise  of  such  unworthy  creatures  as  men  are 
hateful.  The  world  is  a  hideous  place,  existence  a  cursed 
burden.  Absolute  detachment  is  the  supreme  good.  In 
this  way  the  misery  of  his  own  experience  infects  and  dis- 
colors all.  He  pours  over  the  whole  scene  of  life  an  in- 
exhaustible tempest  of  execrations,  contempt,  and  gloom. 
His  pictures  of  the  "  Nothingness  and  Sorrows  of  Life," 
his  eulogies  of  death  and  annihilation,  are  not  surpassed 
in  their  energetic  blackness  and  perverse  gusto  by  the 
most  disgusting  portrayals  of  Oriental  pessimism,  the 
Buddhist  catalogues  of  the  evils  of  existence. 

"  In  this  world,"  says  Schopenhauer,  "there  is  very  much 
that  is  very  bad,  but  the  worst  thing  in  it  is  society." 
"  The  more  I  go  among  men  the  less  of  a  man  I  come 
away."  "  Conversation  with  others  leaves  an  unpleasant 
tang ;  the  employment  of  the  soul  in  itself  leaves  an 
agreeable  echo."  "  The  jabber  of  companies  of  men  is 
as  profitless  as  the  idle  yelping  of  packs  of  hounds." 
Under  the  influence  of  such  a  doctrine  of  the  penal  char- 
acter of  life  and  the  loathsomeness  of  man,  society  con- 
tracted, to  a  unit,  and  solitude  expanded  to  a  boundless 
desolation.  It  could  not  otherwise  than  dilate  and  inten- 
sify the  woe  it  was  meant  to  antidote.  Yet  there  is  in 
the  doctrine  a  weird  horror  that  allures  while  it  affrights. 
As  Hedge  says,  "Nature  shudders,  but  curiosity  tempts. 
It  is  the  fascination  of  the  cavern  and  the  catacomb. 
The  world  of  this  philosophy  is  a  world  of  darkness  which 
no  sunshine  or  starshine  irradiates,  but  whose  only  illu- 
mination is  the  phosphorescence  of  the  animal  matter 
contained  in  it." 

The  poor  Titan  took  the  wrong  way.  Instead  of  aggre- 
gating the  topics  and  motives  of  unhappiness  he  should 
have  aggregated  the  stimulants  and  materials  of  peace 


SCHOPENHAUER.  363 

and  joy,  moderating,  soothing,  attuning  his  faculties  by  a 
sober  and  firm  discipline  with  reference  to  the  standard 
of  personal  perfection.  Maurice  de  Guerin  felt  himself 
a  personality  more  apart  than  above,  select  rather  than 
superior.  He  was  consumptive  ;  physical  lassitude  and 
superfluous  sympathy  and  longing  made  him  unhappy. 
Schopenhauer  felt  himself  a  supreme  man.  He  had  the 
best  digestion,  firm  strength,  and  sound  sleep.  But  his 
superb  complacency,  with  the  restless  exactions  of  its 
social  direction,  kept  him  in  irritating  relations  with  the 
world  ;  and  he  too  was  an  unhappy  sufferer.  To  look  to 
others,  either  with  humble  supplication,  as  Guerin,  or  with 
irate  command,  as  Schopenhauer,  —  to  look  to  others 
for  the  love  or  admiration  they  cannot,  will  not  give,  is 
to  be  miserable.  Then  to  cosset  this  misery,  as  a  proof 
of  spiritual  superiority  —  the  unhappier,  the  greater  and 
worthier  —  is  the  mad  sophistry  of  self-love.  The  wise 
course  is  to  try  to  do  our  duty,  and  perfect  ourselves,  and 
harmonize  our  desires  with  the  conditions  of  truth,  in 
comparative  independence  of  the  opinions  of  other  peo- 
ple. Had  our  chief  of  modern  Pessimists  lowered  the 
denominator  of  his  haughty  desires  from  society,  and 
raised  the  numerator  of  his  humble  self-surrenders  to  it, 
he  would  have  solved  the  equation  of  his  happiness.  The 
disappointment  of  his  ambition  gave  him  a  chronic  moral 
nausea :  he  needed  a  constant  contemplation  of  the 
idea  of  the  race  in  the  individual,  as  a  mental  gargle  to 
enable  him  to  relish  men  and  be  content  in  himself. 
But  unfortunately  he  reversed  this,  seeing  in  mankind 
only  the  multiplied  images  of  the  individuals  for  whom  he 
had  a  particular  aversion.  The  accuracy  of  the  foregoing 
diagnosis  is  confirmed  by  the  mollifying  influence  which 
the  surprising  renown  he  acquired  in  his  last  years  had 
on  his  character,  the  great  happiness  and  new  spirit  it 
gave  him  when  the  first  rays  of  the  morning  sun  of  fame 
gilded  the  evening  of  his  life.  "Time,"  he  smilingly 
said,  referring  to  his  blanched  hair,  "  has  brought  me, 
too,  roses,  but  white  ones."  That  under  the  bristling  jf 
his  bitter  outside  lay  a  soft  heart  of  love  is  indicated  by 
his  fondness  foi  his  poodle  Putz,  who  slept  on  a  black 


364  SKETCHES    OF   LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

bearskin  at  his  feet,  and  invariably  kept  him  company  in 
his  walks. 

Left  alone,  by  the  momentary  absence  of  his  servant, 
a  sudden  rupture  of  the  lungs  snatched  the  sick  Schopen- 
hauer easily  out  of  the  world.  The  physician,  entering 
the  room  immediately  after,  found  him  sitting  in  a  corner 
of  the  sofa,  with  calm  countenance,  dead.  His  Indian 
Bible,  the  Oupnekhat,  lay  on  the  table.  On  the  mantel- 
piece stood  a  gilded  statuette  of  Gotama  Buddha,  the 
great  leader  to  Nirwana.  The  strong,  tart  sage  of  Frank- 
fort had  followed  the  puissant  thinker  of  the  East  to  the 
city  of  peace.  Thenceforth,  for  him,  the  poorness  and 
sorrow  of  life,  against  which  he  had  so  long  chafed,  were 
no  more.  No  more  could  the  meannesses,  impertinences, 
and  vexations  of  the  world  of  men  rain  on  his  weary  head 
or  beat  against  his  sore  heart.  The  insatiable  search 
after  the  knowledge  of  reality  ended,  the  distressful  jour- 
ney done,  the  pack  and  staff  flung  away,  he  had  vanished 
into  the  night  of  eternal  mystery,  where  friends  and  foes, 
victors  and  vanquished,  equally  go. 

One  of  the  small  company  that  gathered  around  his 
grave,  before  they  lowered  the  laurel-crowned  head, 
stepped  forth  and  spoke,  among  other  sentences,  these  : 
"  The  coffin  of  this  extraordinary  man,  who,  after  living 
among  us  so  many  years,  remained  as  foreign  to  us  as 
when  he  came,  awakens  strange  emotions.  No  one 
united  with  him  by  the  sweet  bonds  of  blood  stands 
here.  Alone,  as  he  lived,  he  has  died.  And  yet,  in  this 
still  presence,  something  tells  us  he  has  found  satisfaction 
for  his  solitude."  Yes,  some  true  satisfaction.  For, 
lonely  as  he  was  in  character,  thought,  habit,  death,  we 
think  not  of  him  now  as  lonely.  If  the  Christian  heaven 
be  a  verity,  he  is  there  with  the  Saviour  who  revealed  the 
God  of  the  parable  of  the  Prodigal  Son.  Pardon  cannot 
be  wanting  for  one  whose  ideal  of  man  was  so  grand  that 
his  scorn  burned  against  its  degraded  foils  and  forfeits  ; 
one  whose  loyalty  to  truth  was  so  supreme  that  in  all  his 
life  he  never,  in  self-interest,  swerved  one  step  from  his 
high,  lonely  way.  If  that  heaven  be  the  dream  he  thought 
it,  why  then  he  is  where  he  aspired  to  be,  with  Kapila, 


EUGENIE   DE   GUERIN.  365 

Sakya  Muni,  and  the  other  conquering  kings  of  mind, 
blent  in  the  unknown  destiny  of  the  All,  clasped  in  the 
fruition  of  Nirwana. 


EUGENIE   DE   GUERIN. 

THE  name  of  Eugenie  de  Guerin  has  won  unexpected 
celebrity  through  the  posthumous  publication  of  her  jour- 
nal and  letters,  which  reveal  a  personality  of  singular 
depth  and  purity,  and  record  an  experience  of  rare 
interest,  notwithstanding  its  monotony.  Her  life  was 
clasped  in  by  the  first  half  of  the  present  century ;  but 
the  force  and  simplicity  of  her  character  are  such  as  were 
more  frequent  in  ages  less  complex  and  sophisticated  than 
ours.  The  three  central  chords,  constantly  struck,  and 
making  the  sympathetic  music  of  her  soul,  are  friendship, 
solitude,  religion.  Her  love  for  her  brother  Maurice  is 
one  of  the  marvels  in  the  history  of  affection  :  it  deserves 
to  be  classed  with  the  absorbing  passion  of  Madame  de 
Sevigne'  for  her  daughter.  Placed  in  a  lot  extremely 
lonesome,  bare,  and  regular,  the  keenness  of  her  exuber- 
ant and  tenacious  consciousness  made  her  doubly  sensi- 
tive to  the  weary  isolation  in  which  she  lived.  Her  rich 
and  stainless  feelings,  denied  sufficient  lateral  expansion 
in  the  social  relations,  forced  a  vertical  vent,  and  broke 
upward  in  religious  flame.  But  of  the  three  refrains, 
love,  loneliness,  piety,  the  second  is  the  one  that  recurs 
oftenest,  and  sounds  with  the  most  piercing  tone.  Her 
life  is  as  plaintive  as  it  is  pure,  as  painfully  stamped  by 
the  hunger  of  unsatisfied  affections  as  it  is  divinely  im- 
pressed with  self-renunciation  in  faith  and  duty.  To 
dwell  on  the  pages  of  her  writing  is  like  entering  a  moun- 
tain chapel,  where  we  breathe  at  once  the  charm  of  na- 
ture, the  quiet  of  seclusion,  and  the  peace  of  God.  At 
the  same  time  there  is  an  unspeakable  pathos  in  the  pale 
face  that  looks  out  at  us,  and  a  strange  sigh  of  human 
want  and  woe  in  the  voice  that  speaks  so  calmly.  Alto- 
gether the  character  and  life  of  Eugenie  de  Guerin  have 
profound  lessons  for  those  of  her  sex  gifted  with  natures 


366  SKETCHES    OF    LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

earnest  enough  to  learn  them  ;  a  select  number  in  that 
throng  of  women  whose  attention  is  frittered  on  trifles 
whose  existence  is  a  shallow  distraction  when  it  is  not  a 
tedious  drudgery. 

The  retirement  and  sameness  of  the  life  at  La  Cayla 
were  oppressive.  To  have  a  visit  or  pay  one,  to  write  a 
letter,  to  receive  a  letter,  were  the  great  events.  Eugenie 
writes,  "  A  poor  stranger  has  passed  by  ;  then  a  little 
child.  This  is  all  that  has  shown  itself  to-day."  Again, 
"  To-day  nothing  has  come,  nothing  has  stirred,  nothing 
has  got  done  in  our  solitude."  Once,  when  her  sister 
was  absent,  she  wrote,  "  I  have  passed  the  day  in  com- 
plete solitude,  alone,  —  quite  alone.  I  am  taking  ac- 
count of  my  thoughts  by  the  light  of  a  little  lamp,  now 
my  only  companion  at  night."  She  said  her  days  were 
as  like  each  other  as  drops  of  water.  "  Would  that  my 
arms  were  long  enough  to  reach  all  those  I  love !  "  — 
"  Everything  belonging  to  the  world  soon  wearies  me, 
since  I  always  feel  myself  a  stranger  there."  —  "  God  be 
praised  for  this  day,  spent  without  any  sadness !  Such 
are  so  rare  in  life.  A  word,  a  memory,  a  tone  of  voice, 
a  sad  expression  of  face,  a  nameless  nothing,  will  often 
disturb  the  serenity  of  my  spirit,  —  small  sky,  that  the 
lightest  clouds  can  tarnish."  Her  heart  was  great,  and 
inconceivably  susceptible  even  to  the  most  delicate  im- 
pressions. Such  hearts  are  indifferent  to  whatever  does 
not  give  them  life  ;  they  shrink  with  powerful  instinct 
from  the  careless  slights  and  rude  collisions  that  would 
bruise  them  and  drain  them.  Hence  the  inevitable  soli- 
tariness of  such  characters  as  Eugenie.  Profoundly 
humble  as  she  was,  she  could  not  help  saying,  "  When 
mixing  with  the  world,  I  feel  that  I  am  not  like  others." 

—  "  How  much  sadness  in  this  isolation,  this  chill,  this 
frost,  of  which  the  heart  is  conscious  while  surrounded  by 
pleasures,  and  by  those  who  partake  of  them  ! "    Eugenie 
often  expresses  this  forlorn  and  sorrowful  desertedness. 
After  the  death  of  her  idolized  brother,  she  writes  to  him 
in  her  journal,  "  I  feel  a  want  to  be  alone,  and  not  alone, 

—  with  God   and   thee.      I  feel  myself  shut  out  in  the 
midst  of  all  others.     O  living  solitude !    how  long  wilt 
thou  be  ? " 


EUGENIE   DE   GUfiRIN.  367 

But  solitude,  in  spite  of  this  bitter  pain  of  unfulfilled 
desires,  was  her  best  refuge,  filled  with  her  truest  joys. 
She  abundantly  celebrates  its  charms.  "  Nevers  wearied 
me  with  its  little  society,  its  little  women,  its  great  din- 
ners, dresses,  visits,  and  other  tiresome  things  without 
any  compensation.  Loneliness,  calm,  solitude,  —  recom- 
mencement of  a  life  to  my  taste."  While  she  was  visit- 
ing Paris,  a  woman  having  said  that,  for  her,  "  friendship 
was  a  velvet  couch  in  a  boudoir,"  she  replied,  "Let  me  be 
outside  the  boudoir,  sitting  on  a  lofty  peak,  high  above 
the  world.  To  sit  apart  from  all,  in  this  way,  delights  me 
in  the  same  manner."  This  thoughtful,  down-looking 
withdrawal  removed  the  perturbations  of  her  too  suscep- 
tible soul,  and  soothed  and  nourished  her  self-respect. 
Yet,  as  we  read  over  the  confessing  pages  of  her  journal, 
how  obvious  it  is  tha-t  solitude  is  not  the  true  destiny  of 
the  human  heart ;  but  only  a  retreat  wherein,  when  that 
destiny  has  been  baffled,  it  comforts  itself  with  consola- 
tory substitutes  !  The  instinctive  affections,  extraordi- 
narily strong  in  Eugenie,  balked  of  their  normal  fulfil- 
ment, in  still  loneliness  solaced  themselves  with  other  ob- 
jects, with  ideal  activities,  with  heavenly  aspirations.  No 
pleasure  rivalled  that  she  knew  in  solitude,  with  God, 
books,  and  the  thought  of  Maurice.  "Though  talking 
and  loving  each  other  much,  two  women  alone  find  their 
solitude  very  blank,  —  great  desert  places  in  it :  books, 
books,  are  the  only  recourse."  "  Verily  a  book  is  a 
priceless  thing  for  me  in  this  my  desert  and  famine  of 
the  soul."  It  is  impressive  to  notice  how  constantly, 
without  her  knowing  it  herself,  the  expressions  of  Eugenie 
show  solitude  to  be,  not  the  normal  fruition  of  our  being, 
but  a  retreat  from  a  storm,  a  healing  and  compensatory 
covert  from  hurts  and  griefs.  "  A  convent  is  the  true 
home  of  sad  spirits,  of  such  as  are  strangers  in  the 
world,  or  who  are  timid  and  take  shelter  there  as  in  a 
dovecote"  "  O,  what  enjoyment  to  be  free  from  dis- 
traction, with  God,  and  with  one's  self!  "  Had  not  her 
family  held  her  back,  she  would  gladly  have  adopted  the 
vocation  of  a  nun.  "  For  a  long  while  I  have  been  say- 
ing, with  St  Bernard,  '  O  blessed  solitude  !  O  sole  beati 
tude ! ' " 


368  SKETCHES    OF    LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

One  of  her  most  terrible  trials  was  the  frequent  dis- 
covery of  baseness  in  those  she  had  trusted  and  admired. 
She  passionately  loved  to  reverence  and  confide  ;  and 
the  knowledge  of  the  treacherous  and  deformed  side  of 
human  nature  cost  her  too  much.  To  see  venerable  and 
beloved  brows  discrowned  was  an  agony  worse  than 
death  to  her.  Then  the  calm  of  her  little  chamber,  the 
starry  solitude  of  night,  were  guardian  sanctuaries  into 
which  her  soul  fled.  "  It  is  strange  how  much  I  enjoy 
this  being  apart  from  everything."  "  This  has  been 
one  of  my  happy  days,  of  those  days  that  begin  and  end 
sweet  as  a  cup  of  milk.  To  be  alone  with  God,  O  hap- 
piness supreme  !  "  "  When  I  am  seated  here  alone,  or 
kneeling  before  my  crucifix,  I  fancy  myself  Mary  quietly 
listening  to  the  Saviour.  During  the  deep  silence,  when 
God  alone  speaks  to  it,  my  soul  is  happy,  and,  as  it  were, 
dead  to  all  that  is  going  on  below  or  above."  A  more 
perfect  picture  of  loneliness,  a  more  convincing  proof  of 
the  genius  of  solitude  in  its  author,  than  is  afforded  by 
the  following  passage,  can  hardly  be  found  :  "  My  win- 
dow is  open.  How  tranquil  everything  is  !  All  the 
little  sounds  from  without  reach  me.  I  love  the  sound 
of  the  brook.  The  church  clock  is  striking,  and  ours 
answering  it.  This  sounding  of  the  hours  far  away,  and 
in  the  hall,  assumes  by  night  a  mysterious  character.  I 
think  of  the  Trappists  who  awake  to  pray,  of  the  sick 
who  count  hour  after  hour  in  suffering,  of  the  afflicted 
who  weep,  of  the  dead  who  sleep  frozen  in  their  beds." 

Eugenie  was  well  aware  of  the  moral  dangers  of  too 
great  and  constant  a  withdrawal.  She  religiously  strove 
to  neutralize  them.  "  I  observe  that  I  hardly  make  any 
mention  of  others,  and  that  my  egotism  always  occupies 
the  stage."  "There  is  a  weakness  in  this  bias  of  thought 
towards  one's  self  and  all  that  belongs  to  one.  It  is 
self-love."  The  complaint  does  her  injustice.  For  it  is 
the  peculiar  property  of  a  suffering  nature  to  tint  the 
world  with  its  grief.  And  she  only  poured  out  her  self- 
burdened  soul  as  a  relief  in  her  journal,  never  meant  to 
be  seen.  In  all  associations  with  others  she  was  self- 
forgetfully  devoted  to  her  duties,  abundant  in  disinterested 


EUGENIE   DE   GUERIN.  369 

attentions.  Her  morbid  quality  was  really,  not  thinking 
too  much  of  herself  separately,  but  too  much  thinking  of 
others  in  herself,  and  of  herself  in  others.  It  was  sym- 
pathy that  was  tyrannical,  not  egotism.  To  accuse  them- 
selves of  a  blamable  self-love  is  the  painful  fallacy  of 
those  humble  souls  who  are  too  tender,  and  not  strong 
enough,  nor  enough  detached  from  their  neighbors.  To 
be  accused  of  such  an  excessive  self-reference  is  the  cruel 
wiong  such  souls  always  suffer  from  conceited  and  im- 
patient observers. 

The  threefold  characteristic  of  genius  in  affection  is 
the  richness,  the  intensity,  and  the  tenacity  of  its  emotions. 
The  emotions  of  a  meagre  nature  are  comparatively  nar- 
row, pallid,  and  evanescent.  Whatever  once  entered  the 
heart  of  Eugenie  de  Guerin  became  complicated  with 
aggrandizing  associations,  royal  or  tragic  ;  throbbed  with 
her  blood,  and  stayed  as  a  fixed  part  of  her  life.  "  At 
the  foot  of  the  hill  there  is  a  cross,  where,  two  years  ago, 
having  accompanied  him  so  far,  we  parted  with  our  dear 
Maurice.  For  a  long  time  the  ground  retained  the  im- 
press of  a  horse's  hoof  where  Maurice  stopped  to  reach 
out  his  hand  to  me.  I  never  pass  that  way  without  look- 
ing for  that  effaced  mark  of  a  farewell  beside  a  cross." 
The  prints  on  the  Cayla  road  were  transient  as  strokes  on  the 
air,  compared  with  the  perdurable  impressions  on  that  soft, 
faithful  heart.  This  peculiarity,  joined  with  a  retired  and 
leisure  life,  has  a  good  side  and  an  evil  side  :  for  "  an 
exclusive  feeling  grows  to  immensity  in  solitude."  In  a 
soul  of  ample  health  and  strength,  it  leads,  by  successive 
conquests,  through  an  accumulation  of  glorious  associa- 
tions, to  the  noblest  greatness  and  happiness.  Its  powei 
is  seen  in  that  story  of  La  Picciola,  where  a  simple  flower 
became  the  light,  the  comrade,  the  angel,  the  paradise,  of 
a  poor  prisoner  in  whose  cell  it  grew.  Eugenie  affect- 
ingly  illustrates  it  when  she  says,  "  I  must  record  my  hap- 
piness of  yesterday  :  a  very  sweet,  pure  happiness, —  a 
kiss  from  a  poor  creature  to  whom  I  was  giving  alms. 
That  kiss  seemed  to  my  heart  like  a  kiss  given  by  God." 
Under  such  conditions,  the  littlest  things  are  more  than  the 
greatest  things  are  in  a  crowding  and  dis'sipated  existence. 
16*  x 


37°  SKETCHES   OF   LONELY   CHARACTERS 

On  the  other  hand,  this  accreting  and  eral aiming 
quality  of  genius,  this  incrusting  of  experience  with  asso- 
ciations, in  a  drooping,  timid  soul,  defective  in  elastic 
energy,  leads  to  the  most  melancholy  results ;  it  exagger- 
ates every  evil,  confirms  and  preserves  every  depressing 
influence.  It  fastens  on  the  unfavorable  aspects  of  things, 
heaps  up  sad  experiences,  emphasizes  all  dark  omens, 
until  society  becomes  odious,  action  penance,  life  a  way 
of  dolor,  tne  earth  a  tomb,  the  rain  tears,  and  the  sun  a 
funeral  torch.  How  profoundly  Eugenie  suffered  from 
this  evil,  hundreds  of  passages  in  her  writings  reveal,  like 
so  many  wails  and  sobs  translated  into  articulate  speech. 
Thoughts  of  death  and  feelings  of  sorrow  occupy  that 
relative  space,  which,  on  any  sound  philosophy  and  esti- 
mate of  our  existence,  ought  to  be  occupied  by  thoughts 
of  life  and  feelings  of  joy.  "  At  night,  when  I  am  alone, 
the  faces  of  all  my  dead  relatives  and  friends  come  before 
me.  I  am  not  afraid  ;  but  all  my  meditations  dress  them- 
selves in  black,  and  the  world  seems  to  me  dismal  as  a 
sepulchre."  Her  moods  of  spiritual  exhaustion  appear 
from  the  grateful  approval  she  gave  to  the  word  of  Fene- 
lon  in  relation  to  irksome  prayer,  "  If  God  wearies  you, 
tell  him  that  he  wearies  you."  She  says,  referring  to  a 
former  period,  "  I  got  deeper  and  deeper  among  tombs  : 
for  two  years  I  thought  of  nothing  but  death  and  dying." 
She  calls  "  Inexorable  dejection  the  groundwork  of 
human  life";  and  adds,  "To  endure,  and  to  endure  one's 
self,  is  the  height  of  wisdom."  Surely,  poor  is  the  office 
of  the  angel  of  religion,  descending  and  ascending  be- 
tween God  and  men,  if  at  the  last  he  can  only  waft  us  this 
message  of  despair.  No,  the  highest  wisdom  is  not,  in 
sackcloth  and  ashes,  to  endure  existence  and  ourselves. 
The  highest  wisdom  is,  instead  of  submitting  to  the  will 
of  God  as  its  penitential  victims,  to  conform  to  it  as  its 
grateful  executives  and  usufructuaries,  appreciating  all 
the  goods  of  life  in  the  just  gradation  of  their  values.  In- 
stead of  saying  with  Bossuet,  "At  the  bottom  of  every- 
thing we  find  a  blank,  a  nothingness,"  a  healthy  religious 
faith  finds,  at  the  top  of  everything,  the  bottom  of  some- 
thing better.  The  misery  of  Eugenie  lay  in  her  ungrati- 


EUGENIE   DE   GUfi'PIN.  371 

fied  natural  affections,  whose  disappointments  held  the 
germs  of  death  against  which  she  had  not  sufficient 
vitality  to  struggle  into  serene  victory.  Lack  of  life  is  the 
ground-tone  of  her  grievous  music,  which  would  sweetly 
seduce  the  weak  to  death,  but  loudly  warns  the  wise  to  a 
better  way.  Her  betraying  pen  writes,  "  My  soul  lives  in 
a  coffin."  Again,  "  I  find  myself  alone,  but  half-alive,  — 
as  though  I  had  only  half  a  soul."  And  finally,  with  the 
anguished  heroism  of  a  total  renunciation,  so  willing  to 
perish  as  to  be  unwilling  to  leave  a  trace  behind  :  "  I  am 
dying  of  a  slow  moral  agony.  Go,  poor  little  book,  into 
forgetfulness,  with  all  the  other  things  which  vanish 
away  ! "  Such  an  utterance  proves  the  irritable  feeble- 
ness of  the  centres  of  life  to  be  so  great  that  it  is  painful 
for  them  to  re-act  even  upon  the  idea  of  posthumous 
remembrance.  The  fondled  thought  of  extinction  and 
oblivion  is  soothing  then.  Through  its  inner  wounds,  one 
may  almost  say,  the  very  soul  itself  slowly  bleeds  to 
death. 

There  is  a  bird,  the  arawonda,  that  lives  in  the  lone- 
liest glens  and  the  thickest  woods  of  Brazil.  Its  notes 
are  singularly  like  the  distant  and  solemn  tolling  of  a 
church-bell,  as  they  boom  on  the  still  air,  and  plaintively 
die  away.  Sitting  on  the  tops  of  the  highest  trees,  in  the 
deepest  parts  of  the  forest,  it  is  rarely  seen,  though  often 
heard.  It  is  difficult  to  conceive  anything  of  a  more  sol- 
itary and  lonesome  nature  than  the  breaking  of  the  pro- 
found silence  of  the  woods  by  the  mysterious  toll  of  this 
invisible  bird,  the  swelling  strokes  with  their  pathetic 
diminuendo  coming  from  the  air,  and  seeming  to  follow 
wherever  you  go.  The  tones  of  the  character  of  Eugenie 
de  Guerin  are  like  the  notes  of  the  arawonda. 

Her  lot  was  thorny,  yet  not  without  roses.  The  world 
itself  was  a  convent,  in  which  she  lived  as  a  vestal,  with 
bended  knees,  upraised  eyes,  a  consecrated  will,  but  an 
aching  and  bleeding  heart.  Pool,  nch,  unhappy,  blessed 
maiden  !  we  cannot  bid  her  farewell  without  deep  emotion 
and  a  lingering  memory.  Her  journal  is  a  nunnery  of 
sad,  white  thoughts,  with  here  and  there  one  among  them 
revealing,  as  the  snowy  robe  of  style  is  lifted,  a  heart  of 


372  SKETCHES   OF    LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

agonizing  flame.  We  pity  her  sufferings,  admire  her  for* 
titude,  revere  her  holiness,  bow  before  her  saintly  faith 
and  patience.  What  a  thought  of  peace  it  is  to  think 
that  she  is  now  in  God  !  There  love  is  infinite,  and  re- 
pose perfect.  No  ungenial  society  can  vex,  no  weary 
solitude  burden,  the  freed  inhabitants  there. 


COMTE. 

THE  character  and  life  of  Auguste  Comte,  author  of  the 
Positive  Philosophy,  affords  a  forcible  example  of  the  lone- 
liness of  a  mighty  personality,  of  the  trials  it  is  subjected 
to,  of  its  temptations  to  misanthropy,  and  of  the  compara- 
tive neutralization  of  those  temptations  by  sublime  ideas, 
personal  purity,  and  devotion.  He  believed  himself  born 
to  introduce  a  new  and  better  faith  in  philosophy  and  in 
religion.  The  burdensome  superstitions  which  had  so 
long  darkened  the  minds,  clogged  the  efforts,  disturbed 
the  souls,  and  afflicted  the  lives  of  men,  —  these  accu- 
mulated errors  and  evils  he  would  teach  the  world  to 
throw  off,  and,  by  a  complete  organization  of  the  hie- 
rarchy of  the  sciences,  proceed  more  rapidly  to  fulfil  and 
enjoy  their  true  destiny.  Instead  of  wasting  their  energies 
in  vain  attempts  to  discover  the  unknowable  ultimate 
causes  of  things,  they  should  limit  their  inquiries  to  the 
grouping  of  facts  and  appearances,  and  to  the  discovery 
of  their  laws.  He  would  instruct  them  how  to  outgrow 
their  selfish .  antagonisms  and  rivalries,  in  a  disinterested 
co-operation  for  the  perfection  of  each  other  and  the 
whole.  They  should  no  longer  expend  their  devotional 
sentiments  in  the  worship  of  a  metaphysical  abstraction, 
but  should  recognize,  at  last,  with  clear  consciousness, 
the  true  Supreme  Being,  namely,  the  collective  Humanity, 
made  up  of  all  the  human  beings  who  have  lived,  all  who 
now  live,  and  all  who  are  hereafter  to  live.  This  imper- 
sonated totality  of  mankind  they  should  love  with  all  their 
mind,  heart,  soul,  and  strength,  and  worship  with  appro- 
priate rites  of  good  works,  expansive  sentiments,  and 
symbolic  offices. 


COMTE.  373 

There  was  in  Comte,  undoubtedly,  all  his  life,  an  un- 
balancing bias  of  egotism.  Neither  mental  health  and 
modesty,  nor  a  wide  range  of  careful  comparisons  and 
tests,  enabled  him  to  make  a  fit  and  sound  estimate  of 
his  own  relative  importance.  He  had  a  prodigious  idea 
of  his  own  spiritual  dimensions  and  rank.  He  had  a  most 
despotic  will,  a  morbid  unwillingness  to  take  his  cue  from 
anybody  else,  no  feminine  abnegation  in  society,  but  a 
masculine  necessity  for  dominating.  He  irascibly  re- 
sented influence,  and  repelled  commands.  So,  republi- 
can in  spirit  and  rebellious  in  disposition,  he  offended  his 
official  superiors,  and  was  expelled  from  one  post  after 
another.  He  sympathized  easily  and  strongly  with  the 
great  world  of  men  below,  whom  he  was  to  instruct  and 
uplift ;  but  to  the  nominal  superiors,  who  overlooked  or 
despised  him,  he  gave  a  proud  scorn.  He  used  to  sing 
the  revolutionary  Marseillaise  with  electric  vehemence  ; 
and  the  prefaces  to  his  different  volumes  express  immeas- 
urable contempt  for  his  opponents.  His  feeling  is  shown 
in  his  appeals  to  the  two  classes,  women  and  proletaires, 
as  ready  for  the  acceptance  of  his  catechism.  But,  for  the 
great  thinkers  of  earlier  time  he  cherished  a  glowing 
admiration,  and  scrupulously  acknowledged  his  obliga- 
tions to  them.  He  felt  allied  to  them  as  typical  prede- 
cessors of  himself. 

Deeming  himself  intrusted  with  a  transcendent  mis- 
sion, he  sought  with  heroic  devotion  to  fulfil  it  by  master- 
ing all  foregone  history,  philosophy,  and  science,  eliminat- 
ing the  true  from  the  false,  supplementing  the  incomplete, 
and  imparting  their  perfected  lesson  to  the  world.  To 
this  immense  task  he  gave  an  immense  toil.  Shutting  out 
from  his  life  all  that  could  distract  him,  supplying  his 
humble  wants  by  instructing  private  pupils,  troubled  by 
no  wish  for  premature  fame,  year  after  year,  with  stern 
perseverance,  he  concentrated  all  his  powers  on  his  lofty 
undertaking.  So  deep  was  his  withdrawal,  that,  for  many 
years,  he  did  not  even  read  the  newspapers.  From  the 
retirement  of  his  study  he  sent  out  volume  after  volume, 
to  gain  few  disciples,  many  assailants,  and  general  neglect 

Comte  says  he  received  from  a  very  tender  mother  cer- 


374  SKETCHES   OF    LONELY   CHARAC1ERS. 

tain  interior  chords  eminently  feminine  in  their  character. 
He  also  speaks  of  writing,  all  in  tears,  some  passages  of 
his  positive  philosophy.  It  is  clear,  in  the  evidence  of 
his  whole  life,  that  his  capacity  for  loving  was  as  much 
greater  than  that  of  common  men  as  his  intellect  was 
more  capacious.  He  was  accustomed  even  to  mystic  and 
rapturous  expansions.  His  early  teachers  and  co-laborers 
had  broken  with  him,  he  had  lost  public  employment,  he 
was  forced  to  earn  a  precarious  livelihood  by  private 
teaching  and  lecturing.  He  felt  himself  poor,  solitary, 
and  injured,  in  the  great,  brilliant,  careless  city ;  he  who 
believed  that  his  thought  was  the  most  advanced  and  in- 
clusive any  man  had  ever  known,  and  that  to  his  work 
coming  ages  would  be  the  most  deeply  indebted.  Re- 
garding himself  as  a  thinker  for  mankind,  whose  service 
was  of  incomparable  importance  to  the  world,  when  some 
of  his  admirers  sent  an  annual  contribution  for  his  sup- 
port he  haughtily  accepted  it  as  his  right,  and  angrily 
resented  as  an  inexcusable  wrong  the  subsequent  with- 
holding of  it.  When  he  had  acquired  celebrity,  his  baffled 
rivals  and  enemies,  together  with  the  theologians  and 
metaphysicians  whose  views  and  interests  his  doctrines 
so  scornfully  swept  aside,  kept  a  pitiless  storm  of  obloquy 
blowing  around  him.  Yet  through  all  these  provoking 
conditions  of  bitterness  and  despair  he  held  to  his  task 
with  unswerving  consecration,  with  indomitable  energy, 
his  mind  calm  at  bottom,  his  heart  sweet  at  the  core. 
For,  deep  below  his  disappointments  and  wrongs  lay 
certain  authoritative  assurances,  far  within  his  exasper- 
ated personal  relations  lived -certain  disinterested  affec- 
tions, which  gave  him  inexhaustible  support  and  comfort. 
His  angry  feelings  towards  individuals  were  soothed, 
their  misanthropic  tendency  neutralized,  by  his  philan- 
thropic theory  of  the  whole,  by  the  heroic  purity  and 
self-sacrifice  of  his  life,  and  by  his  poetic  and  devotional 
meditations.  He  had,  perhaps,  the  completest  and  vivid- 
est  idea  of  Humanity,  as  a  personified  unit  comprising 
all  human  beings  from  the  beginning  to  the  end,  that  any 
one  has  ever  entertained.  His  religiousness  of  feeling 
towards  this  grand  ideal  existence,  his  effusive  communion 


COMTE.  375 

with  it,  worship  of  it,  readiness  to  toil  and  suffer  for  it, 
were  unique.  They  healed  his  soreness,  fed  his  aspira- 
tions and  strength,  gave  him  rare  joy,  and  have  made 
a  fresh  contribution  of  very  great  and  enduring  value  to 
the  future  development  of  the  higher  human  feelings. 
When  he  thought  of  this  "  Supreme  Being,"  when  he 
worshippingly  communed  with  the  immortal  thinkers  of 
the  past  forever  incorporated  with  it  in  the  grateful  rev- 
erence of  mankind,  he  forgot  his  foes  and  his  irritations, 
had  a  fruition  of  his  own  greatness,  and  was  wrapt  in 
wonder  and  love.  The  reflection,  too,  over  his  fellow- 
men,  of  his  own  character,  marked  by  such  self-denial 
and  toil  for  truth  and  humanity,  tended  to  ennoble  and 
aggrandize  them  in  his  eyes.  He  indeed  says  in  one 
place,  "  Many  men  remain  in  a  parasitic  state,  swarms  of 
creatures  which  are  in  truth  burdens  on  the  Great  Being, 
reminding  us  of  the  energetic  reprobation  bestowed  on 
them  by  Ariosto  as  '  born  upon  the  earth  merely  to  ma- 
nure it.'  "  But  his  constant  motto,  the  phrase  in  which  he 
concentrated  his  entire  system  of  morals,  was,  "  Live  for 
others."  He  said,  "  The  greatest  pleasures  are  the  pleas- 
ures of  devotedness  to  others."  He  repeatedly  quoted 
with  unction  the  admirable  sentiment  of  Metastasio : 
"  He  deserved  not  to  be  born  who  thinks  he  was  born  for 
himself  alone."  He  everywhere  expresses  boundless  in- 
dignation and  contempt  for  those  who  deny  all  disinter- 
ested sentiments  to  human  nature,  and  himself  enthusi- 
astically enforces  those  sentiments.  The  last  pupil  he 
had  testifies  that  his  nature  "  was  full  of  smothered  kind- 
liness," and  that  he  was  reminded  in  the  sight 'of  him  of 
one  of  "  those  pictures  of  the  Middle  Ages  representing 
St.  Francis  wedded  to  poverty."  He  offered  three  daily 
prayers ;  read  every  day  in  the  sublime  poem  of  Thomas 
a  Kempis,  the  Imitation  of  Christ ;  was  extremely  fond 
of  Dante  ;  and  never  failed  to  devote  his  regular  seasons 
to  the  study  of  the  highest  strains  of  poetic  emotion,  and 
to  religious  meditation  on  the  Great  Being  and  its  worthi- 
est representatives. 

It  is  easy  to   sneer   at  the  extraordinary  egotism  of 
Comte,  more  helpful  to  appreciate  his  rare  powers  and 


3?6  SKETCHES   OF    LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

services.  It  is  easy  to  throw  ridicule  on  that  remarkable 
passage  of  affection,  his  sacred  love  for  Madame  Clotilde 
de  Vaux,  a  chaste  passion  which  developed  new  faculties 
in  him  and  raised  him  from  the  style  of  a  Priestley  to 
that  of  a  Petrarch  ;  but  ridicule  is  unseemly  with  refer- 
ence to  an  experience  so  blameless  in  its  conduct  and  so 
profoundly  instructive  in  the  surprising  ardor  and  tenaci- 
ty of  the  purposes  it  inspired.  To  stigmatize  his  philos- 
ophy as  a  shallow  materialism,  his  religion  as  a  puerile 
and  atheistic  sentimentality,  —  as  if  that  were  all  that  jus- 
tice required  to  be  said  of  him,  —  is  a  cheap  invective, 
dishonoring  less  its  object  than  its  employer. 

His  name  will  live  forever  on  the  list  of  the  illustrious 
few  who  have  imparted  an  original  impulse  to  the  intel- 
lectual progress  of  the  race,  the  evolution  of  the  science 
and  faith  of  humanity.  There  is  something  imposing, 
regal,  in  his  self-sustained  power  of  resolution,  labor  and 
trust.  Differenced  from  the  community  by  despotic  idio 
syncrasies,  an  individual  creed,  a  separate  mode  of  life, 
and  peculiar  aims  and  sympathies,  he  walked  the  streets 
of  Paris  unnoticed  or  scorned,  emerged  from  his  chamber 
alone,  re-entered  it  alone,  sat  by  his  midnight  lamp  alone, 
without  the  slightest  faltering  of  his  aim,  his  faith  and  pride 
supporting  him  like  a  rock  amidst  the  ineffectual  lappings 
of  the  battalions  of  cold  waves  of  indifference  and  hate. 
Sweeping  over  the  ages  with  his  generalizing  eye,  gather- 
ing up  their  significance,  lawgiver  of  history  and  science, 
he  felt,  "  I  am  the  autocrat  of  mankind,  the  first  intellect- 
ual potentate  of  the  earth,  the  supreme  pontiff  of  the 
church  of 'humanity  :  all  future  generations  will  bring  their 
homage  to  my  grave  ! "  Notwithstanding  his  defects,  ex- 
travagances, and  aberrations,  he  deserves,  and  will  ever 
hold,  an  honored  place  among  the  leading  minds  of  the 
world.  Prominent  among  the  valuable  lessons  exempli- 
fied by  his  career  is  the  illustration  it  gives  of  the  anti- 
dotes to  the  germs  of  wretchedness  and  misanthropy 
existing  in  a  solitary  lot. 


JESUS.  377 


JESUS. 

JESUS  has  probably  contributed,  more  than  any  other 
person  who  ever  lived,  to  aggrandize  the  idea  of  man  in 
the  mind  of  the  human  race.  No  other  has  exerted  so 
great  an  influence  for  the  deepening  of  the  spiritual  life 
of  the  world  and  the  production  of  the  moral  virtues. 
This  he  has  done  through  the  contagious  working  of  his 
character,  the  commanding  authority  of  his  instructions, 
the  persuasive  beauty  of  his  example,  and  the  organiza- 
tion of  the  Church,  a  diffusive  society  whose  explicit 
aim  it  is  by  all  sorts  of  worthy  motives  and  sanctions  to 
cultivate  goodness.  So  much  the  freest  sceptic,  who 
looks  out  over  the  picture  of  history  with  unprejudiced 
eye,  will  confess.  But  beyond  this,  in  regard  to  the  exact 
details  of  what  Jesus  actually  was  and  did  and  said,  there 
are  insurmountable  difficulties  in  the  way  of  sure  knowl- 
edge. In  the  narratives  which  furnish  the  only  direct 
information  we  have  about  him,  there  are  chasms,  in- 
consistencies, incredibilities.  The  Christ  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel  appears  not  like  a  real  being,  but  an  imperson- 
ated theory,  half-humanized  and  supplied  with  accordant 
speeches ;  the  incarnation  of  a  philosophic  and  religious 
idea  existing  in  the  metaphysical  speculations  of  that  age,' 
but  moulded  and  colored  by  the  peculiarities  of  the  He- 
brew mind  as  well  as  by  the  genuine  influences  of  the 
historic  Jesus.  His  most  extraordinary  character  and 
teachings  must  have  transcended  the  comprehension  of 
his  companions  even  more  than  is  shown  by  the  avowed 
examples  of  it  given  in  the  New  Testament.  The  idol- 
atrous affection  and  awe  of  later  times  wrought  with  a 
creative  impulse  upon  everything  pertaining  to  him,  sur- 
rounding him  with  a  halo  of  miraculous  attributes  and 
legends,  through  whose  dazzling  obscurity  it  is  difficult  to 
see  his  actual  features.  Furthermore,  the  absence  of  the 
spirit  of  scientific  criticism  in  his  contemporaries  and 
biographers,  the  fragmentary  meagreness  of  the  records, 
the  disguising  perversions  of  nationalities,  languages,  and 
ages,  through  which  his  history  has  since  passed,  —  all 


378       SKETCHES  OF  LONELY  CHARACTERS. 

agree  to  complicate  the  problem  and  make  it  virtually 
impossible  for  us  with  entire  accuracy  to  discriminate  fact 
from  myth,  truth  from  error,  the  meanings  of  the  Teacher 
from  the  interpretations  of  the  reporters,  and  thus  re- 
cover his  authentic  portrait. 

One  thing  at  least  is  certain.  The  unspent  regenerat- 
ing force  exerted  on  the  world  ever  since,  the  redemptive 
revolution  working  among  men  and  distinctly  traceable 
to  the  time  and  place  of  the  birth  of  Christianity,  demon- 
strate that  there  then  lived  a  man  of  unprecedented 
originality  and  power  of  soul,  divinely  inspired  in  an 
unprecedented  degree.  The  veritable  Jesus  of  Nazareth, 
whose  blessed  feet  trod  the  fields  of  Galilee  two  thou- 
sand years  ago,  is  the  historic  nucleus  about  which  has 
gradually  gathered  that  supernatural  nimbus  which  now 
dazzles  the  imaginations  of  most  of  his  followers  with  a 
bewildered  belief  of  his  literal  Godhead.  He  whom  Paul 
called  "the  man  Christ  Jesus,"  is  the  highest  historic 
teacher,  guide,  and  exemplar  of  our  race  ;  not  unlike 
others  in  kind,  however  superior  in  degree.  Looked  at 
in  this  way  he  is  no  longer  absolutely  unique,  but  belongs 
to  a  class,  is  the  culminating  flower  of  a  type.  The  great 
prophets  and  founders  of  religions  in  other  periods  are 
not  to  be  contrasted  with  him  as  sheer  impostors,  casting 
double  mystery  on  him  ;  but  their  traits  and  doings,  the 
psychological  phenomena  they  reveal,  are  to  be  studied 
as  helping  us  the  better  to  understand  him.  Abraham, 
Moses,  Isaiah,  Zoroaster,  Buddha,  Socrates,  Mohammed, 
and  scores  more  of  the  holiest  and  grandest  spirits  of 
our  race,  have  communed  with  God  at  first  hand,  been 
inspired  by  Him,  felt  themselves  intrusted  with  special 
messages  and  a  general  mission.  These  too  have  col- 
lected disciples,  transmitted  themselves,  and,  in  their 
various  modes,  formed  churches,  theologies,  rituals.  To 
such  as  these  a  superhuman  birth,  supernatural  endow- 
ments and  feats,  have  commonly  been  attributed  after 
they  had  gone  and  left  their  inexhaustible  influence  at 
work,  their  immense  echoes  rolling  behind  them.  Most 
students  of  the  history  of  Jesus  have  singularly  neglected 
to  avail  themselves  of  this  help, — a  competent  investiga- 


JESUS.  379 

tion  of  the  characters  and  careers  of  such  men  as  Samuel, 
Elijah,  David,  Pythagoras,  Apollonius,  Francis  of  Assissi, 
Bernard  of  Clairvaux,  —  the  magnetic  natures  of  the 
world,  the  fascinating  personalities  of  history,  the  mystic 
souls  of  biography,  the  imperial  wonder-workers  of  time. 
The  more  thoroughly  we  enter  into  the  experiences  of 
this  stamp  of  men,  and  into  the  mythologizing  action, 
with  reference  to  them,  of  the  minds  of  subsequent  and 
inferior  men,  the  better  able  we  shall  be  to  understand 
Jesus  and  the  vulgar  theory  of  him  ;  though,  after  all  this 
aid,  his  overtopping  authority,  the  overawing  mystery  of 
his  genius,  may  still  baffle  our  measure  and  compel  us  to 
say  with  the  Centurion,  "  Truly  this  was  the  Son  of  God." 

In  distinction  from  the  historic  Jesus,  there  is  the  the- 
ological Christ,  who  is  a  theoretical  personage,  a  specula- 
tive abstraction,  a  spectral  dogma,  a  creation  of  scholas- 
tic controversies.  In  distinction  from  both  of  these, 
there  is  the  practical  Saviour  of  the  heart,  the  working 
Christ  of  the  Church,  the  Master  really  revered  and  loved 
by  the  world  of  true  disciples.  This  Christ  is  partly  his- 
toric and  partly  ideal,  but  wholly  divine.  He  is  the  mov- 
able index  of  the  conscience  of  mankind  ;  the  reflex  of 
the  world's  sense  of  its  duty  ;  the  picture  of  perfection, 
freshly  shaded  and  tinted  in  every  age,  borne  by  the 
marching  human  race.  This  transfusion  of  the  ideal  with 
the  historic  in  the  image  of  its  Saviour,  is  a  necessity  in 
a  life  of  humanity  which  is  not  a  fixture  but  a  process. 
Every  quality  of  beauty  and  of  good  developed  in  the 
evolution  of  advancing  history  and  man,  with  its  new  re- 
finements, complexities,  and  expansions,  is  seen  reflected 
in  this  authoritative  ideal,  in  order  that  it  may  be  taken 
up  by  the  assimilating  forces  of  reverence,  obedience, 
and  love.  Seen  in  this  light  the  mythical  and  ideal  ele- 
ments in  the  popular  Christ  are  not  coincident  with  false- 
hood or  illusion,  but  are  an  inevitable  factor  in  that  his- 
toric process  of  revelation,  or  that  revealed  process  of 
history,  through  which  God  educates  mankind,  —  are  a 
divine  arrangement  for  leading  men  to  redemption. 

It  is  the  delirium  of  historical  scepticism  to  deny  that 
there  was  an  authentic  man  who  served  as  the  centre  foi 


380  SKETCHES   OF   LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

this  construction  and  glorification  which  has  grown  into 
the  moral  and  religious  head  of  the  civilization  of  the 
Christian  world.  Greek  philosophy,  Hebrew  tradition 
and  hope,  and  Roman  domination,  furnished  the  ripe  ma- 
terials and  conditions,  and  Gibbon  says,  "  Christianity 
was  in  the  air."  Yes,  and  it  would  have  remained  in  the 
air  had  not  a  crystallizing  personality  appeared  to  collect 
and  draw  it  thence.  The  elements  of  Christianity  were 
held  in  solution  in  the  world ;  the  character  of  Christ, 
moving  through  them,  precipitated  Christendom. 

But  historic  actuality  as  Jesus  was,  no  one  without  strong 
wilfulness  or  credulity  can  accept  the  present  portrait, 
painted  in  the  imagination  of  Christendom,  as  an  exact 
transcript  of  the  primitive  original.  Each  critical  inquir- 
er, who,  unwilling  to  remain  in  confessed  ignorance,  or  to 
accept  with  blind  faith  what  is  told,  desires  to  get  at  the 
facts,  must  do  his  best  to  extricate  the  real  image  from 
the  mingled  darkness  and  radiance  of  history,  myth,  le- 
gend, and  speculation  enveloping  it.  The  Christian  Con- 
sciousness, the  collective  sense  of  Christendom,  is  com- 
petent to  determine  what  is  congruous,  what  incongruous, 
with  the  true  idea  of  Christ ;  to  cut  off  superfluities  and 
supply  defects  in  the  transmitted  form.  The  purest  and 
highest  souls,  who  know  the  most  of  biography,  history, 
and  science,  the  most  of  the  mysteries  of  human  nature, 
who  have  been  the  most  perfectly  trained  in  the  personal 
experience  of  the  spiritual  life,  and  who  therefore  have 
an  ineffably  quick  tact  to  detect  moral  consonances,  dis- 
crepancies, and  requirements,  are  the  authoritative  rep- 
resentatives of  this  totality  of  Christian  perception  and 
feeling.  But  the  difference  between  fact  and  truth,  his- 
tory and  spirit,  the  typical  idea  and  the  concrete  reality, 
must  always  be  borne  in  mind. 

The  present  sketch  comparatively  limits  itself  to  those 
aspects  of  the  character  of  Jesus  which  have  relation  to 
solitude,  loneliness,  grief,  and  the  various  temptations  in- 
cident to  these  experiences.  It  does  not  attempt  to  pre- 
sent a  full  portraiture  of  him  and  his  career.  He  was  a 
soul  so  pure  as  to  be  an  organ  of  the  Spirit  of  the  Whole ; 
that  is,  an  inspired  representative  of  God.  He  was  a  gen- 


JESUS.  381 

ius  so  fine  and  strong  as  to  master  by  spontaneous  intu- 
ition moral  and  religious  principles  and  sentiments  which 
the  wisest  philosophers  and  poets,  aided  by  the  richest 
training  of  the  schools,  have  apprehended  only  after  a 
lifetime  of  toil  and  aspiration.  His  organism  was  so  in- 
teriorly soft  and  deep,  that  fulfilling  emotions  of  peace 
and  bliss,  such  as  the  rarest  mystics  in  their  highest  mo- 
ments have  known,  were  his  effortless  acquisition.  The 
greatest  and  most  original  thoughts,  the  most  direct  per- 
ceptions of  fundamental  truths,  the  most  beautiful  and 
persuasive  images,  the  most  entrancing  expansions  of 
feeling,  came  to  him  so  like  instincts  unawares,  that  he 
could  not  claim  them  as  his  own,  but  only  attribute  them 
to  God,  the  Infinite  Father,  with  whom  the  sweet  sim- 
plicity of  his  self-renounced  heart  felt  itself  in  unison 
through  all  the  loveliness  and  mystery  of  His  works  and 
ways.  No  poet  or  moralist  ever  created  fresher  or  more 
charming  apologues  than  he,  or  spoke  in  a  richer  dialect 
of  audacious  insight  and  beauty  than  he  in  his  speeches 
of  the  lilies,  of  the  birds,  of  the  sun  rising  on  the  evil 
and  on  the  good,  of  the  rain  falling  on  the  just  and  on 
the  unjust.  No  reformer  ever  scouted  the  hoary  tradi- 
tions of  ages  and  reversed  the  rooted  prescriptions  of  his 
time  with  more  fearless  superiority  than  he.  His  receptive 
and  responsive  capacity  of  genius  brought  him  into  un- 
paralleled intimacy  of  fellowship  with  humanity,  nature, 
and  God,  made  him  independent  of  the  teachings  of 
others,  gave  him  a  supreme  authority,  ingravidated  his 
utterance  as  with  the  weight  of  worlds.  "  Heaven  and 
earth  may  pass  away,  but  my  words  shall  not  pass  away." 
It  is  the  voice  of  a  God. 

Many  earnest  students  of  the  character  of  Jesus  are 
perplexed,  confounded,  by  what  seems  to  be  the  astound- 
ing arrogance  of  his  personal  claims,  the  contradiction 
between  the  sublime  sincerity  of  his  precepts  and  practice 
of  self-sacrifice  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  unapproachable 
egotism  of  many  of  his  declarations  on  the  other.  Three 
considerations  go  far  to  remove  this  difficulty.  First, 
there  is  great  reason  to  believe  that  much  of  this  self 
assertory  language  was  either  not  used  by  him  at  all,  but 


382  SKETCHES   OF   LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

reflected  back  from  the  ideas  subsequently  entertained  of 
him,  or  was  employed  by  him  in  an  official  sense  referring 
to  his  Messianic  rank  and  functions,  not  in  a  personal 
sense.  Secondly,  in  several  instances  it  is  clear  that  the 
ostentatious  assumption  is  only  apparently  such.  For  ex- 
ample, when  he  says,  "  I  am  meek  and  lowly  of  heart," 
there  is  nothing  like  vanity  or  boasting ;  it  is  trje  simple 
truth,  expressed  by  an  innocence  so  naive,  an  unsophisti- 
catedness  and  sincerity  so  august,  as  to  be  wholly  uncon- 
scious of  self.  He  had  no  thought  of  awakening  admira- 
tion, but  aimed,  through  pure  truth  of  example  and  word, 
to  bless  others  by  winning  them  also  to  meekness  and 
lowliness.  It  is  self-regardful  vanity  that  in  such  a  case 
would  hesitate  to  speak  the  truth  from  fear  of  the  effect, 
and  be  immodest  in  appearing  modest.  Thirdly,  when 
Jesus  made  use  of  such  expressions  as,  "  He  that  eateth 
my  body  and  drinketh  my  blood  hath  eternal  life,"  he 
means  not  himself,  but  the  divine  quality  shown  in  him, 
a  gift  of  God.  He  likewise  says,  "  He  that  eateth  my 
flesh  and  drinketh  my  blood,  dwelleth  in  me  and  I  in 
him,"  that  is,  between  him  and  the  disciple  animated  by 
the  same  indestructible  principles  there  is  a  community 
of  spirit.  Also,  still  more  clearly,  "  The  words  I  speak, 
they  are  spirit  and  they  are  life."  The  doctrine  he  taught, 
the  faith  he  held,  the  spirit  he  was  of,  —  it  is  this,  and  not 
his  own  personality,  that  he  demands  such  astounding 
deference  to.  "  I  and  my  Father  are  one  " :  here  he  does 
not  sink  God  in  himself,  —  boundless  egotism,  —  but  iden- 
tifies himself  with  God,  —  boundless  renunciation,  —  feels 
that  God  inspires  him,  lives  and  speaks  in  him,  and  does 
the  works.  He  so  surrenders  and  blends  himself  with  the 
truth  as  to  represent  it,  and  say,  "  I  am  the  truth."  He 
found  himself  in  possession  of  great  moral  and  spiritual 
truths,  —  truths  far  in  advance  of  the  time.  He  did  not 
know  how  they  came,  but  felt  that  he  did  not  himself 
achieve  them.  He  supposed  that  God  had  given  them 
to  him  and  laid  on  him  the  mission  of  proclaiming  them. 
He  identified  the  revealing  spirit  with  God ;  and  justly 
so.  It  is  God  alone  who  can  give  to  the  finite  and 
perishable  individual  the  perception  of  the  universal  and 


JESUS.  383 

eternal,  so  that,  an  inspired  prophet,  he  shall  say,  "  I  will 
utter  things  which  have  been  kept  secret  from  the  foun- 
dation of  the  world."  It  is  not  any  personal  ego,  but  the 
voice  of  divine  reality,  that  speaks  then.  "  No  man 
cometh  unto  the  Father  except  by  me."  That  is  to  say, 
No  man  can  live  in  that  communion  with  the  Father  in 
which  I  live,  except  by  means  of  the  same  faith  in  the 
Father  which  I  have,  except  by  means  of  that  idea  of  the 
Father  which  I  have  declared.  Correctly  understood, 
there  is  no  egotism  in  these  declarations ;  they  are  natu- 
ral and  dignified  expressions  of  the  facts  of  the  case  : 
they  are  the  style  proper  to  the  seer. 

Whatever  cannot  be  explained  by  these  considerations 
is  to  be  rejected  as  spurious ;  because  the  evidence  is 
irresistible  that  Jesus  was  the  most  self-abnegated,  sacri- 
ficing, lowly,  and  loving,  of  the  sons  of  men.  The  central 
germ  of  his  divine  originality  consisted  in  this  very  thing, 
his  utter  superiority  to  all  the  hollow  ambitions,  pomps 
and  prides  of  the  world,  his  unrivalled  sympathy  with  the 
poor,  the  sinful,  the  outcast,  the  lost.  He  came  not  to  be 
ministered  unto,  but  to  minister.  Leaving  to  others  the 
uppermost  rooms  at  feasts,  and  the  chief  seats  in  syna- 
gogues, he  devoted  himself  to  the  cure  of  vice  and  the 
relief  of  pain,  and  by  the  assiduous  practice  of  his  own 
aphorism,  "  Let  him  that  would  be  first  among  you  be 
your  servant,"  inverted  the  scale  of  Pagan  virtue,  and  in- 
stituted a  new  order  of  greatness  on  the  earth.  It  is 
because  he  has  lived  that  we  are  now  able  to  say,  looking 
down  on  the  wretched  with  pity  and  up  to  the  ransomed 
with  desire,  The  lower  a  man  carries  his  love  the  loftier 
he  lifts  his  life.  In  every  objectionable  sense  of  the  word 
egotism,  Jesus  was  one  of  the  least  egotistic  souls  that 
ever  appeared  among  men.  Every  word  inconsistent  with 
this  interpretation  of  his  character  is  falsely  ascribed  to 
him.  The  mighty  Ipse  dixit  of  Pythagoras  reflects  not 
the  personal  assumption  of  the  great  Crotonian  ;  it  re- 
flects the  impression  made  on  his  disciples  by  his  inscru- 
table personality  and  genius.  The  more  inscrutable  soul 
of  Jesus  would  naturally  work  a  deeper  effect  and  secure 
stronger  expressions.  This  explanation  is  to  be  empha- 


384  SKETCHES   OF    LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

sized  with  the  fact  that  in  that  period  exceptionally  impos- 
ing and  gifted  men  were  often  regarded  as  deities.  Peter 
said  to  those  who  would  have  worshipped  him  as  a  god, 
"  See  ye  do  it  not ;  I  also  am  a  man."  The  priests  and 
people  at  Lystra  would  have  sacrificed  garlanded  oxen  to 
Paul  and  Barnabas,  believing  them  to  be  Hermes  and 
Zeus.  It  is  therefore  clearly  unnecessary  to  think  that 
Jesus  is  God  because  he  has  been  believed  to  be  God. 
The  mystery  of  the  soul  of  Jesus,  the  strange  authority 
of  his  knowledge,  the  marvellous  effects  he  wrought,  are 
to  be  ascribed  to  a  special  heightening  of  the  ordinary 
intercourse  of  God  with  human  nature.  To  undertake 
to  explain  them  by  the  notion  of  something  superhuman 
and  preternatural,  a  unique  incarnation  of  the  Godhead, 
is  to  leave  the  region  of  reason  and  law  and  enter  the 
region  of  fancy  and  chimera. 

He  who  taught  men  that  the  path  of  the  moral  com- 
mandments was  the  path  of  salvation,  that  a  life  of  philan- 
thropic works  was  a  title  to  redemption  in  the  judgment, 
who  took  an  innocent  child  for  the  best  image  of  heaven, 
who  sought  no  kingdom  but  truth,  no  honor  but  love,  who 
said  "  Of  myself  I  can  do  nothing,"  and  who  in  the  fare- 
well hour  instituted  a'  feast  of  love  to  keep  his  name  in 
remembrance,  —  could  never  have  dreamed  of  the  medi- 
aeval doctrine  of  the  atonement,  could  never  have  ex- 
pected to  be  deified,  nor  have  wished  to  be  personally 
worshipped.  And  all  worship  that,  resting  in  him,  stops 
short  of  the  Absolute  Highest,  simply  makes  him  the 
purest  and  sublimest  of  fetishes.  He  is  then  the  head 
of  that  series  of  idols  which  sinks  past  the  picture  of  the 
Italian  bandit,  and  the  leaden  image  of  the  Portuguese 
sailor,  to  the  toad,  tree,  stick,  and  stone  of  the  savage. 

To  merge  the  divine  humanity  of  Jesus  in  a  factitious 
theory  of  his  Deity  is  to  lose  more  than  can  be  gained. 
For  we  can  get  no  good  from  him  except  as  we  drink  his 
spirit.  He  can  benefit  us  only  by  influencing  us  to  become 
like  himself.  The  only  redemptive  relation  to  him  is  a 
spiritual  not  an  official  one,  an  adoption  of  the  quality  of 
his  character,  not  any  ceremonial  attitude  towards  his 
name  or  person.  The  essential  thing  is  not  a  formal 


JESUS.  385 

belief  in  the  saving  efficacy  of  his  blood,  but  a  willing- 
ness, imbibed  from  him,  to  shed  our  own  for  the  good  of 
mankind.  We  read  that  a  diseased  woman  once  pressed' 
through  the  crowd  and  touched  the  hem  of  his  garment, 
and  by  the  power  of  her  faith  was  immediately  healed. 
Is  not  still  the  loyal  disciple,  who  gets  near  enough  to 
touch  him  in  spirit  and  draw  forth  the  inspiring  virtue  he 
delivers,  made  spiritually  whole  ?  But  to  neglect  the  text, 
"  Be  ye  perfect  as  your  Father  in  heaven  is  perfect,"  for  the 
text,  "  I  will  raise  him  up  at  the  last  day,"  to  value  the 
groaning  and  the  unloosed  napkin  by  the  grave  of  Laza- 
rus more  highly  than  the  conversation  by  the  well  of 
Jacob  and  the  parable  of  the  Good  Samaritan,  is  to 
vulgarize  the  wisdom  of  Jesus  into  clairvoyance,  and 
materialize  his  spiritual  divinity  into  a  physical  thauma- 
turgy.  It  is  doubtless  easier  for  the  Confraternity  of  the 
Sacred  Heart  of  Jesus  to  worship  the  symbol  of  the  visible 
organ  than  vitally  to  appropriate  the  moral  substance. 
But  the  genuine  heart  of  Jesus  is  to  be  seen  in  his  say- 
ings, Surfer  little  children  to  come  unto  me ;  Go,  and  sin 
no  more ;  It  is  my  meat  to  do  the  will  of  Him  that  sent 
me ;  Love  one  another  as  I  have  loved  you  ;  and  is  fitly 
worshipped  only  by  a  personal  assimilation  of  these 
sentiments. 

The  whole  mass  of  declarations  and  imagery,  accord- 
ingly, in  which  Jesus  is  represented  as  virtually  asserting 
that  no  one  can  be  saved  without  a  direct  and  professed 
relation  to  him  in  his  Messiahship,  arrogating  to  himself 
personally  a  forensic  position  of  inconceivable  power  and 
grandeur,  —  this  language,  if  regarded  as  authentic,  and 
taken  in  its  literal  sense,  would  force  us  to  believe  that  he 
labored  under  a  gross  delusion.  It  is  impossible  for  any 
mind  fit  to  grapple  with  such  a  subject,  to  credit,  as  the 
true  account  of  the  plan  of  God  for  the  future  history  of 
the  earth  and  man,  the  mechanical  hypothesis,  the  melo- 
dramatic mythology,  that  on  a  fixed  day  a  trumpet  is  to 
sound,  clouds  of  angels  to  fly  down  and  reap  the  harvest 
of  the  burning  world,  Jesus  himself  to  appear  in  omnip- 
otent array  and  to  cause  a  resurrection  of  the  dead  from 
their  graves,  and  then  sit  in  person  in  the  awful  assize, 
17  Y 


386  SKETCHES   OF   LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

and  apportion  their  doom  to  the  good  and  the  bad.  This 
is  no  tone  from  the.  infinite  harmony  of  truth.  It  is  a  jar- 
ring figment  of  fancy.  We  cannot  believe  that  he  whose 
mind,  with  its  matchless  intuitive  scope  and  penetration, 
was  so  soundly  poised,  ever  taught  any  such  thing. 
The  genius  of  the  religion  he  founded,  the  prominent  con- 
gruities  of  his  character,  require  us  to  think  that  such  as- 
sertions are  exaggerations  thrown  back  by  later  theories, 
or  misreports  fastening  on  his  expressions  an  exterior 
meaning  foreign  to  his  intention.  His  other  thoughts  are 
irreconcilable  with  this  monstrous  forensic  and  theatrical 
personal  prominence.  "The  word  that  I  have  spoken, 
the  same  shall  judge  him  at  the  last  day ;  for  I  have  not 
spoken  of  myself."  "To  sit  on  my  right  hand  and  on  my 
left,  is  not  mine  to  give."  "  Why  callest  thou  me  good  ? 
There  is  none  good  but  One,  that  is  God."  "  All  the  law 
and  the  prophets  hang  on  these  two  commandments,  Thou 
shall  love  God  with  all  thy  heart,  Thou  shalt  love  thy 
neighbor  as  thyself."  "  Except  ye  be  converted  and  be- 
come as  little  children  ye  cannot  enter  the  kingdom  of 
heaven."  "If  I  honor  myself,  my  honor  is  nothing." 
"  Ye  shall  know  the  truth,  and  the  truth  shall  make  you 
free."  "  God  is  Spirit,  and  they  that  worship  him  must 
worship  him  in  spirit  and  in  truth."  The  man  who  was 
the  author  of  these  thoughts  could  not  have  believed 
himself  destined  to  ride  down  space  with  a  cherubic  escort, 
as  the  conquering  hero  of  the  Universe,  and  to  set  up  his 
judgment  chair  on  an  expiring  world  amidst  the  rising 
millions  of  the  dead.  Never.  It  is  historically  traceable 
as  mixed  Persian  and  Jewish  fancy,  and  its  authorship 
has  been  only  erroneously  attributed  to  Jesus. 

The  whole  dominant  style  of  character  exemplified  by 
Jesus,  as  summed  up  in  his  chief  maxims,  such  as,  — 
Resist  not  evil,  Love  your  enemies,  My  kingdom  is  not 
of  this  world,  Go  forth  as  lambs  among  wolves,  Humility 
and  service  are  the  true  exaltation,  —  was  startlingly  new 
and  strange  in  his  age.  This  singularly  original  person- 
ality, so  close  to  God,  so  harmonized  to  truth,  so  full  of 
love,  could  not  but  set  him  far  apart  in  spirit,  and  make 
him  a  baffling  enigma  to  his  contemporaries.  Even  those 


JESUS.  387 

simple  hearts  who  yielded  to  his  charm,  and  followed  him 
with  loving  reverence,  could  not  pierce  the  mystery  that 
surrounded  him,  but  constantly  "  marvelled  what  manner 
of  man  he  was."  Whether  we  think  of  him  as  pacing  the 
highways,  in  the  still  village  synagogue,  tossing  in  the  mid- 
night tempest  on  the  lake,  riding  through  hosannas,  over 
strewn  garments  and  palms,  besought  by  the  wondering 
multitude  to  become  their  King,  seeking  the  sheltered 
shades  of  Gethsemane  or  the  starry  top  of  Olivet,  — 
always  he  seems  to  us  transcendently  alone,  wrapt  in  the 
solitude  of  his  own  magical  originality. 

In  addition  to  the  distinguishing  effect  of  the  wonder- 
ful impression  he  made  on  persons,  and  of  the  wonderful 
works  of  healing  and  renewal  he  wrought,  —  the  matchless 
penetration  of  his  genius,  as  shown  in  his  parables  and  his 
beatitudes  and  his  answers  to  puzzling  questions,  must  have 
removed  him  from  other  men  by  making  it  impossible  for 
them  at  once  to  comprehend  his  teachings.  Repeatedly  we 
read,  "They  understood  not  what  things  they  were  which 
he  spake  unto  them."  And  once  he  said,  as  if  sorrowfully 
forced  back  upon  himself  in  a  chill  insulation,  "  I  have 
many  things  to  say  unto  you,  but  you  cannot  hear  them 
yet,"  and  then  he  invoked  the  Spirit  of  Truth  to  teach 
them  afterwards  what  was  at  that  time  unintelligible  to 
them.  Not  one  man  out  of  a  million  at  this  day  can 
fathom  by  any  direct  perception  the  full  meaning  of  his 
utterances,  "  Blessed  are  the  poor  in  spirit,  for  theirs  is 
the  kingdom  of  heaven" ;  "Blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart, 
for  they  shall  see  God."  How  few  also  are  competent  to 
appreciate  his  intense  moral  idealism,  as  shown  both  in 
his  ethics  and  in  his  doctrine  of  prayer  ;  a  practical  ideal- 
ism far  superior  to  the  speculative  idealism  of  Berkeley 
or  Fichte.  His  interior  realization  was  so  entrancing  as 
to  make  the  inner  consciousness  all,  the  outer  facts  noth- 
ing. He  removed  his  tribunal  from  the  outer  court  of 
words  and  acts,  where  the  rabbinical  priests  held  theirs, 
and  established  it  in  the  inner  sanctuary  of  thoughts  and 
affections.  His  appalling  sentences  are,  "  Whoever  look- 
eth  on  a  woman  to  lust  after  her,  hath  already  committed 
alultery  with  her  in  his  heart " ;  "  He  that  hateth  his 


388  SKETCHES    OF    LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

brother  is  a  murderer."  It  is  true  the  latter  text  is  not 
from  his  lips  ;  but  it  belongs  to  his  favorite  disciple,  and  is 
conceived  perfectly  in  his  spirit.  If  a  man  ask  anything 
of  God,  without  doubting,  he  shall  receive  whatever  he 
asks.  If,  with  absolute  belief,  he  say  to  a  mountain,  Be 
thou  removed  into  yonder  sea  !  it  shall  be  done.  This  is 
true  in  the  ideal  sphere,  not  in  the  material.  A  supreme 
faith  is  omnipotent  in  its  own  realm,  the  world  of  con 
sciousness.  Whatever  a  man  asks  or  orders,  in  entire 
faith,  with  no  opposing  doubt,  is  subjectively  granted. 
It  becomes  real  in  his  inner  life,  though  not  to  the  eyes 
of  others.  If  the  unqualified  language  of  Jesus  be  cor- 
rectly assigned  to  his  lips,  it  is  explicable  only  in  this 
way ;  and  it  ranks  him  in  the  same  order  of  mind  with  the 
supreme  masters  of  thought  who  have  held  the  universe 
in  solution  in  an  idea.  His  expansiveness  of  intellectual 
sensibility  seems  competent  to  any  greatness.  When 
blamed  for  busying  himself  on  the  Sabbath,  he  said,  God 
ceases  not  his  beneficence  on  this  day :  why  should  I  ? 
"  My  Father  worketh  hitherto,  and  I  work."  What  an 
unimaginable  height  of  life  such  a  level  of  thought  implies  ! 
Is  it  not  indeed  the  speech  of  a  Son  of  God  ?  It  was  a 
grand  achievement  to  go  into  the  depth  of  the  sky,  and 
read  the  law  of  creation,  —  the  attraction  of  matter  ac- 
cording to  the  inverse  square  of  the  distance.  It  was  a 
grander  achievement  to  go  into  the  depth  of  the  soul,  and 
read  the  law  of  salvation,  —  the  free  and  conscious  re- 
nunciation of  self.  "  Whoever  will  save  his  life  shall  lose 
it ;  and  whoever  will  lose  his  life  for  my  sake  shall  find 
it."  In  other  words,  Whoever,  by  an  ignoble  compromise, 
would  escape  any  hardship,  shall  incur  a  greater  evil  than 
he  avoids  :  Whoever,  for  a  sacred  cause,  would  sacrifice 
any  personal  interest,  shall  take  up  a  greater  good  than 
he  lays  down.  It  is  unquestionably  the  wisdom  of  the 
inspiration  of  God. 

Jesus  was  made  lonely,  furthermore,  by  the  peculiarities 
of  his  mission.  God  had  laid  on  him  a  special  work  of 
infinite  importance ;  and  it  absorbed  him,  he  felt  strait- 
ened until  it  was  accomplished.  His  divine  call,  and  his 
perfect  devotedness  to  it,  set  him  beyond  the  pale  of  the  fel- 


JESUS.  389 

lowshiping  sympathies  of  the  crowd,  remote  from  their 
interests  and  passions.  It  invested  him  with  a  sphere  of 
strangeness  which  produced  curiosity  in  some,  hatred  in 
others,  awe  in  most,  and  a  feeling  of  unlikeness  and  dis- 
tance in  nearly  all.  In  fulfilling  the  Messianic  office  he 
was  called  to  be  a  Messiah  surprisingly  different  from  the 
one  his  countrymen  were  expecting  with  such  eager  desire. 
He  was  not  anointed  to  gratify  their  revengeful  pride 
by  overthrowing  their  enemies,  and  putting  them  at  the 
head  of  the  world  in  the  administration  of  a  visible  the- 
ocracy ;  but  to  teach  them  humility,  and  love,  and  faith, 
and  silently  inaugurate  an  unseen  kingdom  of  heaven  by 
preaching  the  gospel  of  the  enlightenment  of  the  poor,  the 
deliverance  of  the  captive,  the  comforting  of  sorrow,  the 
healing  of  disease,  the  removal  of  the  sins  and  miseries  of 
the  world.  The  lowly  circumstances  of  his  origin,  the 
contradiction  of  the  purely  spiritual  functions  he  exercised 
to  the  pompous  material  functions  of  the  anticipated 
Messiah,  the  fatal  opposition  of  his  living  teachings  to 
the  system  of  dead  traditions  and  rites  in  vogue,  inevi- 
tably engendered  in  the  established  teachers  a  deadly 
feud  against  him.  The  persecuting  hatred  of  all  those 
classes  who  monopolized  the  offices  of  honor  and  power 
in  the  nation  must  have  deepened  his  feeling  of  loneliness, 
and  emphasized  it  with  a  dark  sense  of  danger  and  suffer- 
••ng.  This  steep  alienation,  this  irreconcilable  antagonism, 
»vas  steadily  aggravated,  on  the  part  of  the  Scribes  and . 
Pharisees,  as  Jesus  became  more  known  and  influential, 
and  as  the  revolutionary  character  of  his  vital  morality 
and  religion  grew  more  clearly  pronounced  ;  and  on  the 
side  of  Jesus,  as  he  saw  more  fully  the  rank  hypocrisy 
and  tyranny  of  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  and  the  cruel 
burdensomeness  and  barrenness  of  their  ceremonial  sys- 
tem. He  had  come  to  set  men  free  with  the  freedom 
Df  the  living  truth,  to  cleanse  the  augean  bosom  of  the 
»vorld  by  turning  through  it  a  river  of  pure  enthusiasm. 
They  were  the  opponents  of  his  work.  They  had  sub- 
stituted in  place  of  a  renewing  personal  faith  and  love  an 
Dppressive  and  corrupting  mass  of  formalities.  They  hid 
the  key  of  knowledge,  neither  going  in  nor  letting  others 


390  SKETCHES   OF    LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

in.  He  saw  that  before  he  could  accomplish  his  mission 
of  establishing  the  genuine  religion  of  the  love  of  God 
and  man,  the  authority  of  these  selfish  and  wicked  fanatics 
must  be  destroyed.  The  battle  made  his  lot  that  of  an 
outcast.  But  he  shrank  not.  Fired  with  holy  indigna- 
tion at  the  sight  of  the  impious  wrong  and  injury  they 
were  doing  by  their  monstrous  inversion  of  the  moral  law 
in  their  characters  and  of  the  religious  law  in  their  tra- 
ditions, he  flamed  against  them  with  the  angelic  wrath  of 
the  Lamb.  He  exposed  them  as  sophists,  blind  guides, 
hypocrites,  who  would  strain  out  a  gnat  and  swallow  a 
camel,  who  blew  a  trumpet  before  giving  alms,  made 
long  prayers  of  ostentation,  and  would  not  stretch  forth  a 
finger  to  relieve  the  distresses  of  humanity.  In  return, 
with  the  malignity  and  terror  of  cowardice,  they  sought 
his  life. 

The  spiritual  solitude  of  Jesus,  resulting  from  his  tran- 
scendent personality,  his  inspired  originality  of  genius, 
and  the  absorbing  speciality  of  his  mission  in  an  alien 
world,  acquired  a  culminating  intensity  from  the  series  of 
cruelties  and  indignities  he  endured.  He  knew  all  the 
bleakness  and  hardship  of  a  despised  lot  of  poverty,  and 
toil,  and  homeless  wandering.  Many  a  time,  footsore  and 
weary,  he  paused  to  refresh  himself  with  a  crust,  and  a 
draught  from  the  wayside  well.  Many  a  time  the  stars 
looked  between  the  branches  of  the  olive-trees  into  his 
eyes,  and  the  night-damps  fell  on  his  head  by  the  shores 
of  Gennesaret.  And  everything  demeaning  or  odious 
that  could  be  connected  with  his  history  was  caught  up 
by  his  envious  neighbors  or  his  public  foes  and  flung 
against  him  in  sneers  and  taunts.  "  Is  not  this  the  car- 
penter's son  ? "  "  Can  any  good  come  out  of  Naza- 
reth ?  "  His  own  kindred,  unable  to  appreciate  a  soul  so 
much  above  their  own,  turned  against  him,  saying,  "  He 
is  beside  himself."  His  words  were  perverted,  his  actions 
misrepresented,  his  aims  misinterpreted.  They  stigma- 
tized him  as  a  gluttonous  man  and  a  wine-bibber,  because 
he  was  no  dark  ascetic.  They  accused  him  of  a  degraded 
preference  for  the  society  of  publicans  and  sinners,  be- 
cause he  divinely  stooped  in  love  to  soothe  the  unhappy 


JESUS.  391 

and  save  the  lost  They  called  him  a  blasphemer,  be- 
cause he  uttered  the  words  breathed  into  his  soul  by  the 
Spirit  of  God.  They  accused  him  of  immorality  and 
irreligion,  because  he  had  an  incomparably  finer  percep- 
tion of  moral  principles  and  deeper  truth  of  devotion 
than  they. 

The  worst  sting  in  the  injustice  which  the  highest  ben- 
efactors of  the  world  have  always  suffered,  is  to  have 
those  immeasurably  beneath  and  behind  them  assume  to 
look  down  upon  them  and  back  upon  them,  with  anger, 
hate,  and  scorn,  and  to  see  the  rewards  which  ought  to 
be  theirs  bestowed  on  persons  utterly  unworthy  of  them. 
The  purest  lovers  of  men  and  worshippers  of  God,  the 
spiritual  heroes  who  reject  current  dogmas  and  conven- 
tional feelings  from  allegiance  to  higher  and  better  ones, 
are  regarded  as  traitors  to  truth  and  violators  of  piety, 
on  account  of  the  very  superiority  of  their  virtue.  The 
most  royal  souls  of  the  race,  who  so  truly  love  and  honor 
their  fellow-men  as  to  sacrifice  everything  selfish  for  their 
good,  who  achieve  wider  ranges  of  knowledge  and  peace, 
giving  men  light  in  place  of  darkness,  love  in  place  of 
hate,  trust  in  place  of  fear,  —  who  win  stores  of  bread  of 
life  for  generations  to  come,  —  are  either  feared  as  dan- 
gerous innovators  and  persecuted  as  wicked  heretics,  or 
neglected  to  die  of  want  and  heart-break,  while  merely  tit- 
ular kings,  without  one  attribute  of  merit  beyond  the  place 
they  accidentally  occupy,  selfish  voluptuaries  and  tyrants, 
are  boundlessly  honored  and  pampered  by  the  people  they 
mislead,  prey  upon,  and  despise.  This  is  the  tragedy  of 
history ;  and  Jesus  felt  it  in  its  darkest  extremity.  What 
imagination  can  reproduce  his  feelings  when  he  saw  the 
people  choose  Barabbas  rather  than  him,  ranking  that 
brutal  wretch  above  him,  and  heard  the  hoarse  yell  break- 
ing on  his  ears  :  "  Crucify  him !  crucify  him  !  "  Next 
he  proved  the  lonely  agony  of  treachery  and  desertion. 
One  of  his  immediate  disciples  betrayed  him  for  a  price, 
and  the  rest  fell  away  in  the  gathering  gloom.  He  was  left 
alone  with  his  enemies  and  the  blind  fury  of  the  mob. 
Then  he  sounded  to  its  very  bottom  the  deepest  depth 
of  loneliness  and  woe,  —  the  tortures  of  mockery.  All  the 


392  SKETCHES   OF    LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

billows  of  injustice  and  ingratitude  had  gone  over  his  soul. 
And  now  the  pitiless  probe  of  sarcasm  was  to  be  applied. 
Ah,  how  little  it  was  dreamed,  as  the  governor  led  him  out, 
bleeding  from  the  degradation  of  the  scourge,  and  said 
to  the  multitude,  "Behold  the  man  !"  —  how  little  it  was 
dreamed  that  the  voice  of  that  silent  sufferer  would  thrill 
the  world  forever,  his  face  melt  the  heart  of  all  posterity ! 
They  platted  a  crown  of  thorns  and  put  it  on  his  head, 
and  they  put  a  purple  robe  on  him,  and  a  reed  for  a 
sceptre  in  his  hand,  and  they  tauntingly  bowed  the  knee 
before  him,  and  mocked  him,  saying,  "  Hail,  thou  king 
of  the  Jews  ! "  It  was  the  crudest  irony  ever  known  on 
earth,  because  the  disparity  was  the  vastest  between  what 
he  deserved  and  what  he  received.  His  merit  was  God- 
like, his  treatment  fiendish.  Him,  who  never  spurned  the 
lowliest  thing  that  wore  the  shape  of  man,  but  unweariedly 
went  about  doing  good,  they  nailed  upon  the  cross.  Him, 
whose  kingdom  was  the  truth,  whose  royal  function  was 
succoring  the  needy,  they  charged  with  traitorous  usurpa- 
tion, and  put  to  death.  Was  there  ever  so  tremendous  a 
jibe  as  the  descent  from  his  idea  of  a  moral  throne  of 
beneficence  and  love  subduing  all  souls  in  universal  good- 
ness, to  their  estimate  of  him  as  desiring  to  wear  the  He- 
brew crown  and  be  joined  with  the  vulgar  despots  of 
history  ?  And  he  had  to  endure  this. 

Unmistakable  indications  of  his  sufferings  from  loneli- 
ness, neglect,  and  abuse,  are  scattered  through  the  narra- 
tives of  his  life.  It  could  not  be  otherwise.  He  must 
have  been  as  extraordinarily  susceptible  of  pain  from  lack 
of  sympathy,  from  injustice  and  unkindness,  as  his  inte- 
rior softness,  richness,  and  fire  were  extraordinary.  His 
want  of  the  usual  domestic  ties,  his  frequent  withdrawals 
from  the  crowds  who  gathered  to  listen  to  him,  his  con- 
stant habit  of  wandering  by  himself  for  meditation  and 
prayer  in  the  grove,  by  the  lake,  and  on  the  mountain, 
the  account  of  his  solitary  temptation  in  the  desert, — 
throw  light  on  this  sad  and  interesting  phase  of  his  char- 
acter. What  a  revelation  of  his  yearning  for  affection  is 
made  in  his  words  to  Simon,  "  Thou  gavest  me  no  kiss 
when  I  came  in,"  and  in  his  deep  satisfaction  from  the 


JESUS.  393 

love  of  the  sinful  woman  who  washed  his  feet  with  her 
tears  and  wiped  them  with  her  hair !  The  picture  of  him 
with  John,  the  beloved  disciple,  leaning  on  his  bosom  at 
the  feast,  will  never  fade  before  the  eyes  of  the  world. 
We  catch  glimpses  of  his  hunger  for  sympathy,  of  the 
sorrows  of  his  wronged  affectionateness,  in  many  of  his 
utterances.  "  Simon,  son  of  Jonas,  lovest  thou  me  ? " 
"  Could  ye  not  watch  with  me  one  hour  ?  "  "  Will  ye  also 
go  away  from  me  ? "  "  They  hated  me  without  a  cause." 
This  last  expression,  with  other  kindred  ones,  enables 
us  to  trace  something  of  his  reactions  towards  those  who 
repulsed  his  words  and  his  person.  There  is  a  blending 
of  a  grieved  feeling  of  personal  injury  and  an  indignant 
feeling  of  public  injury  in  several  of  his  speeches  concern- 
ing those  who  rejected  his  mission  and  persecuted  him 
because  he  aimed  to  supersede  their  traditions  and  cere- 
"nonies  by  a  living  religion.  He  saw  at  once  the  malig- 
nant style  of  character  out  of  which  their  antipathy  sprang, 
and  the  pernicious  corruption  which  subordinated  right- 
eousness, mercy,  and  faith  to  tythings  of  mint,  anise,  and 
cummin,  —  and  he  unsparingly  condemned  them  in  the 
name  of  God.  He  did  not  refrain  from  invective  and  irony  : 
and  in  this  some  personal  feeling  always  mingles.  Satire 
is  curdled  poetry.  Satire  is  the  very  recoil  of  stung  sensi- 
bility. Is  not  something  of  this  perceptible  in  such  texts 
as  the  following  ?  "  It  cannot  be  that  a  prophet  perish 
out  of  Jerusalem."  "  Many  good  works  have  I  showed 
you  from  my  Father  ;  for  which  of  these  works  do  ye  stone 
me ? "  "I  am  come  in  my  Father's  name,  and  ye  reject 
me ;  if  another  come  in  his  own  name,  ye  will  receive 
him."  "  No  prophet  is  accepted  in  his  own  country." 
"  When  the  blind  lead  the  blind,  both  fall  into  the  ditch." 
But  how  divinely  the  disinterested  feeling  rose  over  every 
merely  personal  feeling  is  sublimely  shown  by  his  bearing 
under  the  greatest  moral  outrage  he  ever  suffered.  They 
said,  u  He  casteth  out  devils  by  Beelzebub,  the  Prince  of 
Devils."  Then  Jesus  said,  after  a  silencing  dialectic  refu- 
tation of  their  statement,  "  Whosoever  speaketh  against 
the  Son  of  Man,  it  shall  be  forgiven  him  ;  but  whosoever 
speaketh  against  the  Holy  Spirit,  it  shall  not  be  forgiven 
17* 


394  SKETCHES    OF    LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

him."  There  is  one  text,  however,  fit  to  be  the  motto  of 
all  truly  ai  istocratic  souls  who  writhe  back  from  the  sting- 
ing wrong  and  scorn  of  a  misappreciating  world,  —  a 
proverb,  which,  if  he  be  really  the  creator,  or  even  the 
quoter  of  it,  more  than  any  other  utterance,  betrays  at 
least  a  temporary  soreness  in  his  mind.  "  Cast  not  your 
pearls  before  swine,  lest  they  trample  them  under  their 
feet,  and  turn  again  and  rend  you."  He  who  breathed 
such  divinity  of  tenderness,  such  inexhaustible  magnanim- 
ity of  forbearing  pity  and  love  towards  all  men, '  who 
would  give  the  pearl  of  great  price  purchased  with  his  own 
blood  to  the  lowest  child  of  humanity,  who  in  the  agony 
of  death  yearned  over  the  broken  malefactor  by  his  side 
with  the  promise  of  Paradise,  —  what  pain,  what  unutter- 
able revulsions  of  feeling,  he  must  have  undergone  before 
he  could  have  said  that! 

But  if  Jesus  had  sharp  temptations  to  misanthropic 
pride  and  despair,  his  helps  for  neutralizing  them,  and 
overcoming  the  world,  were  also  great.  They  proved 
sufficient  to  make  him  the  most  glorious  victor  among 
all  who  have  ever  fought  the  bitter  battle  of  life  ;  inspir- 
ing model,  great  Captain  of  Salvation,  to  all  subsequent 
fighters  of  the  good  fight.  He  kept  himself  constantly 
employed  in  fulfilling  his  mission,  relieving  the  mental 
distresses  and  bodily  infirmities  he  encountered,  sowing 
broadcast  the  seeds  of  his  kingdom.  And  no  sweet  spirit 
thus  busied  in  disinterested  works  of  philanthropy  and 
religion  ever  curdles.  When  overtried  by  the  multitude, 
he  found  solacing  restoration  in  the  beautiful  retreats  of 
nature,  in  communion  with  God,  by  the  brook  Cedron,  in 
^ic  vale  of  Siloam,  and  other  dear  haunts  of  his  feet. 
"  And  in  the  morning,  rising  up  a  great  while  before  day, 
he  went  out,  and  departed  into  a  solitary  place,  and  there 
prayed."  He  likewise  knew  the  sweets  of  friendship  :  for, 
besides  those  "  who  followed  after  him  for  the  loaves  and 
fishes,"  there  were  some  who  devotedly  loved  him  for  his 
own  sake.  There  was  a  humble  home  in  Bethany,  where, 
with  Lazarus  and  the  two  sisters,  he  who  was  homeless 
often  delayed.  If  of  the  ten  lepers  whom  he  cleansed  he 
was  forced  to  ask,  Where  are  the  nine  ?  one  gratefully  re- 


JESUS.  395 

turned  and  clove  to  him.  He  had,  too,  the  unfaltering 
approval  and  support  of  his  own  conscience,  a  clear,  ener- 
getic assurance  from  the  inspiring  spirit  of  God  within 
him.  When  all  were  scattered,  and  he  was  left  alone,  he 
could  firmly  say,  "  And  yet  I  am  not  alone,  for  the  Father 
is  with  me." 

He  was  sustained  and  animated  by  two  ideas,  of  the 
sublimest  import  and  of  unprecedented  novelty  in  his 
time.  First,  the  idea  of  one  God  who  is  an  Omnipresent 
Spirit,  the  Universal  Father,  who  is  to  be  worshipped  by 
loyal  openness  to  truth,  purity  of  heart,  righteousness  and 
beneficence  ;  who  sees  in  secret  and  appropriately  re- 
wards every  hidden  act.  Secondly,  the  idea  of  Humanity 
as  one  great  unit  or  family  of  brothers  covering  the  earth, 
to  be  saved  and  brought  into  co-operating  affection  and 
blessedness  by  one  law  of  love.  He  was  the  Son  of  Man, 
the  child  of  collective  Humanity,  as  well  as  the  Son  of 
God,  —  the  earliest  in  history  to  bear  those  conjoined  titles. 
"  Whosoever  doeth  the  will  of  my  Father  in  heaven,  the 
same  is  my  brother  and  my  sister  and  my  mother."  The 
law  of  unclefiled  morality  and  religion,  the  universal  will  of 
God,  is  the  fine  consanguinity  which  constitutes  the 
Brotherhood  of  Man.  It  is  the  ineffaceable  glory  of 
Jesus  to  be  the  first  in  history  to  affix  the  full  significance 
of  the  name  Father  to  the  unity  of  the  unknown  God- 
head, and  to  derive  the  legitimate  consequences.  Whether 
or  not  science  shall  ever  supersede  this  conception  with 
another,  it  was  a  step  of  progress,  of  immense  historic  and 
moral  importance,  which  was  inevitable,  sooner  or  later ; 
and  the  name  of  Jesus  is  identified  with  it.  The  Greeks 
and  Romans  had  spoken  of  father  Zeus,  omnipotent  father 
Jove,  parent  of  gods  and  men  ;  but  it  was  a  pale  philo- 
sophic glimmer,  an  ineffectual  poetic  image.  So  the  in- 
frequent theoretic  perception  of  the  unity  of  Humanity 
played  as  a  cold  light  in  the  head  of  antique  philosophy, 
with  no  power  to  overcome  the  jealousies  and  hate*,  of 
families,  classes,  tribes  and  nations  But  Jesus,  by  his 
exemplification  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Fatherhood  uf  God, 
gave  that  feeling  of  the  Family,  so  common  and  so  pow- 
erful in  antiquity,  that  intense  sentiment  of  one  bloo  1 


396  SKETCHES   OF   LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

from  one  parentage,  with  its  affiliating  obligations,  new 
life  and  expansive  energy,  and  turned  it  through  the 
world  in  a  warm  and  voluminous  flood  of  humanity.  It 
was  a  practical  discovery  in  morals  as  important  as  the 
invention  in  mechanics  of  reverse  motion  by  the  cross- 
band. 

He  comforted  himself  with  the  sympathetic  idea  and 
forefeeling  of  fame,  honorable  and  affectionate  remem- 
brance according  to  his  deserts.  Instituting  the  Eucha- 
rist, he  said,  "  This  do  in  remembrance  of  me."  He  sent 
his  disciples  forth  to  convert  the  earth,  saying,  "  Lo,  I 
am  with  you  to  the  end  of 'the  world."  Looking  forward 
through  many  nations  and  ages,  he  saw  little  companies 
gathered  together  in  his  name,  and  felt  himself  in  the 
midst  of  them.  Suffering  the  loneliness  of  a  leader  who 
is  out  of  sight  of  his  followers,  the  idea  of  invisible  millions 
behind  imaginatively  brought  the  inspiring  solace  of  their 
companionship  already  into  his  heart.  How  deep  his 
grateful  feeling,  how  true  his  bold  prophecy,  with  regard 
to  the  woman  who  poured  the  alabaster  box  of  spikenard 
on  him  !  "  Verily  I  say  unto  you,  wheresoever  "this  gos- 
pel shall  be  preached  throughout  the  whole  world,  this 
also  that  she  hath  done  shall  be  spoken  of  for  a  memorial 
of  her."  Inspired  word  of  love  fulfilled  this  day  ! 

Entire  devotion  to  the  accomplishment  of  his  mission, 
strengthening  communion  with  the  peaceful  solitudes  of 
nature,  inspired  consciousness  of  the  presence  of  God, 
unconquerable  love  of  "humanity  and  assurance  of  a  be- 
nign dominion  in  the  appreciating  future,  were  the  sup- 
ports which,  in  connection  with  his  own  holy  genius, 
enabled  Jesus  to  rise  victoriously  above  the  severe  trials 
that  beset  him,  and  leave,  in  unapproached  pre-eminence, 
a  blameless  example  of  heroism,  nobleness,  and  beauty. 
From  his  first  clear  perception  and  assumption  of  the 
providential  part  assigned  him  he  knew  not  the  distress 
and  waste  of  internal  conflict,  but  was  in  interior  unity  with 
himself.  This  steady  oneness  of  will  and  conscience  is 
the  supreme  condition  of  strength  and  peace.  He  whose 
first  recorded  words,  a  strayed  boy  in  the  temple,  were, 
"  Wist  ye  not  that  I  must  be  about  my  Father's  busi- 


JESUS.  397 

ness  ?  "  could  say  when  the  shadow  of  the  cross  was  fall- 
ing athwart  his  steps,  "  I  have  finished  the  work  Thou 
gavest  me  to  do."  In  all  the  lone  passages  and  human- 
ly unfriended  hours  of  his  life  he  nourished  his  soul  with 
the  angels'  food  of  the  sense  of  duty  performed,  love 
exercised,  self  sacrificed,  divine  favor  vouchsafed.  And 
the  most  essential  lesson  of  that  Gospel  which  he  is 
rather  than  preaches,  declares  that  whoever,  of  all  the 
faltering  strugglers  with  the  world,  will  use  the  same 
helps  in  the  same  spirit,  shall  win  a  kindred  victory. 

O  what  a  victory  that  was !  The  wrong  he  received 
was  the  crudest,  the  return  he  made  the  divinest,  with- 
in the  compass  of  history.  With  godlike  benignity  he 
stooped  to  pour  out  on  all  forms  and  conditions  of  men  a 
pitying  and  redeeming  love  never  equalled  in  purity  and 
measure  before  or  since  ;  and  they  left  him  to  wander,  for 
the  most  part  neglected,  friendless,  shelterless,  in  sorrow 
and  pain.  Imaginatively  extending  his  individuality  to 
the  limits  of  the  race  and  the  earth,  he  identified  himself 
with  all  the  outcasts,  prisoners,  sick  and  destitute  of  all 
ages,  all  unhappy  victims  bleeding  under  the  miseries  of 
humanity,  and  invoked  for  them  the  same  tender  treat- 
ment that  he  thought  he  deserved  himself;  and  they 
hoisted  him  between  two  thieves  in  the  place  of  infamy, 
to  die  the  most  ignominious  and  torturing  of  deaths. 
And  when,  with  magnanimity  unmatched  in  the  annals  of 
humanity,  he  preferred,  as  a  ground  for  their  forgiveness, 
their  ignorance  of  the  real  nature  of  their  own  deeds,  they 
wagged  their  heads  at  him,  and  reviled  him,  and  mocked 
him.  This  was  his  last  sight  below,  an  upturned  sea  of  re- 
vengeful and  sarcastic  visages.  Then  came  a  moment,  — 
moment  of  most  awful  loneliness  ever  felt  by  man,  —  when 
with  the  ebbing  strength  of  the  body  the  spirit  too  shrunk 
from  the  encroaching  darkness,  and  he  cried,  "  My  God, 
my  God,  why  hast  thou  forsaken  me  ?  "  It  seems  as  if 
that  cry  might  have  pierced  immensity,  shaken  the 
farthest  stars,  and  wrung  a  response  from  the  inscrutable 
lips  of  Fate.  Instantly  the  eclipse  passed,  —  eternal 
light  broke,  —  "Father,  into  thy  hands  I  commit  my 
spirit,"  —  and  the  earthly  tragedy  subsided  into  stillness 


398  SKETCHES    OF   LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

forever.  It  was  inevitable  that  the  impression  on  the 
minds  of  those  who  afterwards  learned  to  appreciate  the 
infinite  contradiction  between  the  worth  of  the  august 
sufferer  and  the  doom  he  bore,  between  the  spirit  he 
showed  and  the  treatment  he  took,  should  express  itself 
in  stories  of  preternatural  portents,  the  veiling  sun,  the 
shuddering  earth,  opening  graves,  and  rending  temple. 

There  are  doctrines  connected  with  theoretical  Chris- 
tianity which  may  never  command  universal  assent. 
There  are  speculative  disputes  on  points  relating  to  the 
person  and  biography  of  its  founder  which  may  never  be 
satisfactorily  settled.  But,  practically  considered,  in  the 
authoritative  beauty  of  his  character  and  example,  which 
carried  the  high- water  mark  of  human  nature  so  far 
above  all  rival  instances,  no  purer  expression  of  the  di- 
vine in  humanity  is  to  be  expected.  And  good  men  can 
cherish  no  worthier  ambition  than  to  make  the  whole 
world  a  Christopolis,  whose  central  dome  shall  lift  the 
lowly  form  of  Jesus  in  solitary  pre-eminence  to  draw  all 
men  unto  the  discipleship  of  his  spirit,  while,  with  ever- 
progressing  intelligence  and  liberty,  they  co-operate  in 
the  mazy  industries  of  the  sciences  and  arts  of  human 
life  below. 


SUMMARY   OF   THE   SUBJECT. 

THE  foregoing  pages  have  furnished  abundant  proof 
that  persons  of  extraordinary  sensibility  are  likely  to  ex- 
perience the  loneliness  and  unhappiness  of  human  life  in 
an  extraordinary  degree.  Probably  no  previous  age  was 
so  rife  as  the  present  in  interior  discords,  baffled  longings, 
vast  and  vague  sentiments  whose  indeterminateness  is  a 
generating  source  of  misery.  Probably  there  were  never 
before  so  many  restless  and  weary  aspirants,  out  of  tune 
with  their  neighbors,  dissatisfied  with  their  lot,  unsettled 
in  their  faith,  morbidly  sensitive,  sad,  and  solitary.  To 
make  a  true  estimate  of  what  the  trouble  is  with  these 
victims  of  self-love  and  the  social  struggle,  to  give  them 


SUMMARY   OF   THE   SUBJECT.  399 

,V)uiid  sanitary  directions,  explaining  the  causes  of  their 
wounds,  and  the  best  curative  treatment,  we  cannot  but 
chink  will  be  a  service  of  especial  timeliness.  To  these 
innumerable  sufferers,  writhing  under  distressful  relations 
with  themselves  and  others,  would  it  not  be  an  invaluable 
boon  to  be  guided  to  a  tranquil  oblivion  of  their  injuries 
and  resentments,  their  uneasy  desires  and  woes,  in  remote 
retreats  of  thought,  in  cool  and  sweet  sanctuaries  of  senti- 
ment, in  undisturbed  temples  and  glens  of  faith  and  love  ? 
If  the  studies  of  the  preceding  chapters,  and  the  personal 
experience  which  first  led  to  those  studies,  furnish  any 
qualification  for  this  office,  it  may  be  in  some  degree 
discharged  by  summarizing  for  the  reader  the  practical 
results  of  the  whole  investigation.  He  to  whom  a  hun- 
dred veiled  wounds  of  his  own  have  given  an  accurate 
knowledge  of  the  wounds  of  other  people  should  know 
how  to  impart  therapeutical  instructions,  and  also  how 
to  soothe  the  unhappy  souls  about  him  with  soft  mag- 
netic strokes  of  sympathy.  Blessed  art,  why  do  so  few 
practise  thee  ? 

There  is  inexhaustible  help  for  the  suffering  man  in  an 
adequate  knowledge  of  the  sufferings  of  others  ;  how  they 
originated,  and  to  what  issues  they  led ;  the  warnings  of 
those  who  were  defeated  by  their  trials  and  ignominiously 
perished  under  them  ;  the  examples  of  those  who  van- 
quished theirs  and  came  out  in  victorious  cheer.  Nothing 
can  be  more  stimulative  and  fruitful  for  the  unambitious 
recluse  than  sympathetic  contact  with  the  experience  of 
the  noble  spiritual  heroes  who  have  spotlessly  worn  their 
crowns,  throned  on  the  summits  of  society.  On  the  other 
hand,  nothing  can  be  more  blessedly  solacing  and  sed- 
ative for  the  overwrought  champion  of  the  arena  than 
contemplation  of  the  inner  drama  of  those  delicate  and 
listening  minds,  those  deep  and  dreamy  hearts,  who  pass 
their  days  in  an  ideal  sphere  detached  from  the  intoxicat- 
ing prizes  of  outward  life,  far  from  the  bewildering  roar 
of  the  world.  This  is  indeed  the  choicest  value  of  liter- 
ature, the  deepest  art  of  life,  —  to  supplement  the  defects 
:>f  our  own  experience  by  appropriating  from  the  experi- 
nee  of  others  what  we  stand  in  want  of. 


400  SKETCHES   OF   LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

Beyond  a  question,  the  welfare  of  society  and  the  hap- 
piness of  the  multitude  have  increased  from  the  palmy 
da)  s  of  Egypt,  or  those  of  Sparta,  to  the  time  when  the 
serfs  of  Russia  were  emancipated,  and  when  the  tele- 
graphic cable  girdled  the  world.  Beyond  a  question,  on 
the  other  hand,  when  we  turn  from  Cyrus  to  Napoleon, 
from  Pericles  to  Pitt,  from  Socrates  to  Schopenhauer,  from 
Pindar  to  Lamartine,  we  must  see  that  the  moral  discon- 
tent of  individuals,  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  inward 
unity,  the  mental  fatigue  and  soreness  of  superior  persons, 
have  been  increasing.  This  is  owing  to  the  greater  com- 
plexity of  elements  and  stimuli  in  modern  life  ;  also  to 
the  greater  development  of  conscience,  alliances  with 
impersonal  interests,  obscure  connections  of  dependence 
and  responsibility  with  huge  masses  of  public  good  and 
evil.  The  greater  the  number  of  the  interests  a  man 
carries,  and  the  greater  the  number  of  external  relations 
he  sustains,  the  more  delicate  and  arduous  becomes  the 
problem  of  harmonizing  them,  fulfilling  his  duties,  and 
satisfying  his  desires.  The  sympathetic  ties  of  the  indi- 
vidual were  far  less  numerous  and  extended  formerly  than 
at  present.  Consciousness  spreads  over  a  wider  surface 
and  along  more  lines  ;  every  breast  is  a  telegraphic  office 
throbbing  with  the  vibrations  of  the  communicating  web 
of  civilization.  Christianity,  the  historic  moral  progress 
of  the  race,  has  also  introduced  quicker  and  larger  stand- 
ards of  right  and  wrong,  developed  an  intenser  sense  of 
divine  authority  and  human  brotherhood,  and  made  men 
feel  themselves  amenable  to  a  much  more  diffused  and 
exacting  spiritual  tribunal  than  was  known  to  the  careless 
children  of  the  early  world.  All  this  increases  the  diffi- 
culty of  any  chronic  self-complacency ;  and,  as  Aristotle 
says,  "happiness  is  the  attribute  of  the  self-complacent." 
It  is  natural  that  as  extension  and  complication  remove 
narrowness  and  simplicity  from  the  life  of  the  individual, 
he  should  with  diminishing  frequency  attain  the  happiness 
of  a  contented  unity  with  himself.  This  must  be  espe- 
cially true  when  a  profound  sense  of  the  presence  and 
perfection  of  God,  of  the  rebuking  examples  of  the  saints, 
of  the  infinite  nature  of  duty,  gives  him  a  constant  feeling 
of  his  own  unworthiness,  vanity,  and  transitoriness. 


SUMMARY   OF    THE   SUBJECT.  40! 

In  antiquity  the  individual  was  sunk  in  the  mass  as  a 
political  tool.  Now  he  has  a  keen  feeling  of  a  separate 
personality,  freedom,  and  responsibility ;  yet,  at  the  same 
time,  and  as  a  consequence  of  the  same  causes  which 
have  produced  this,  he  has  an  acute  feeling  of  his  moral 
relations  with  the  mass.  The  deep  sense  of  God,  human- 
ity, duty,  eternity,  which  adds  so  much  to  our  dignity  and 
joy  when  it  is  healthily  co-ordinated  with  our  nature, 
often  makes  us  so  much  more  susceptible  to  self-reproach, 
grief,  and  fear.  In  every  age  an  earnest  experience  of 
religion  has  segregated  men  from  the  world  ;  but  Christi- 
anity did  this  in  an  unprecedented  degree  when  it  filled 
the  deserts  and  valleys  and  mountains  of  Christendom 
with  hermits.  One  great  consequence  of  the  modern 
enhancement  of  self-consciousness,  and  enhancement  of 
the  consciousness  of  the  external  relations  of  self,  has 
been  the  feeling  of  individual  loneliness  in  .the  crowd,  a 
melancholy  shrinking  and  sinking  of  the  heart  from  the 
miscellaneous  public,  a  sad  or  fond  courting  of  solitude 
for  the  application  there  of  ideal  solaces  to  the  soul. 
There  is  in  the  following  lines  by  Sterling  a  tone  of 
sentiment  marking  them  so  distinctly  as  a  product  of  our 
modern  Christian  epoch  that  no  one  could  suppose  them 
written  by  any  poet  of  antiquity. 

Lonely  pilgrim  through  a  sphere 

Where  thou  only  art  alone, 
Still  thou  hast  thyself  to  fear, 

And  canst  hope  for  help  from  none. 

Andrew  Marvell,  the  friend  of  Milton,  and  quite  his  mate 
in  soul,  thus  describes  a  noble  character  withdrawn  into 
his  garden  and  musing  there  ;  a  character  rich  in  mind 
and  heart,  and  avid  of  a  quiet  retreat  aside  from  the  busy 
littlenesses  of  life  : 

Nor  he  the  hills,  without  the  groves, 
Nor  height,  but  with  retirement,  loves. 
Meanwhile  the  mind  from  pleasure  less 
Withdraws  into  its  happiness, 
Annihilating  all  that 's  made 
To  a  green  thought  in  a  green  shade. 


402  SKETCHES    OF    LONELY    CHARACTERS. 

Marvell,  depicting  the  glory  of  Adam  in  Eden,  thinks 
there  was  one  drawback  to  his  bliss,  namely,  that  he 
had  a  comrade. 

But 't  was  beyond  a  mortal's  share 
To  wander  solitary  there  : 
Two  paradises  are  in  one 
To  live  in  paradise  alone. 

It  is  a  touch  of  sentiment  tinged  with  humorous  satire 
impossible  to  any  writer  of  India,  Egypt,  Persia,  Greece, 
or  Rome.  There  is  an  ineffable  charm  for  the  modern 
heart  in  the  picture  of  Paul  and  Virginia  alone  together 
on  their  island.  But  the  Philoctetes  of  Sophocles,  the 
classic  Crusoe,  ten  years  alone  on  desolate  Lemnos, 
listening  to  the  lonely  dash  of  the  breakers,  himself  his 
only  neighbor,  the  cliffs  echoing  his  groans,  reveals  the 
horror  the  social  Athenians  had  of  solitude,  and  shows 
by  contrast  the  joy  the  sunny-hearted  Greek  took  in  the 
society  of  his  fellow-men.  There  is  something  grand  in 
the  words  of  Gotama  Buddha,  as  reported  in  the  Dham- 
mapadam  : — "  If  you  can  find  no  peer  to  travel  with  you, 
then  walk  cheerfully  on  alone,  your  goal  before,  the  world 
behind  :  better  alone  with  your  own  heart  than  with  a 
crowd  of  babblers."  But  how  clear  the  difference  between 
the  temper  of  ancient  Buddhist  isolation  and  the  temper 
of  modern  Christian  isolation  is  when  we  compare  with 
the  above  sentence  the  following  one  by  Martineau ! 
"  Leave  yourself  awhile  in  utter  solitude  ;  shut  out  all 
thoughts  of  other  men,  yield  up  whatever  intervenes, 
though  it  be  the  thinnest  film,  between  yourself  and 
God  ;  and  in  this  absolute  loneliness,  the  germ  of  a  holy 
society  will  of  itself  appear  ;  a  temper  of  sympathy,  trust- 
ful and  gentle,  suffuses  itself  through  the  whole  mind ; 
though  you  have  seen  no  one,  you  have  met  all,  and  are 
girt  for  any  errand  of  service  that  love  may  find." 

The  same  reasons  that  make  the  feeling  of  loneliness 
and  moral  wretchedness  more  frequent  and  strong  in 
modern  times  than  it  was  before  the  Christian  era,  like- 
wise make  the  achievement  of  a  steady  concord  and 
happiness  more  arduous  to  the  man  of  exceptional  sensi- 
bility and  ambition  than  it  is  to  average  men.  Unhap- 


SUMMARY   OF   THE   SUBJECT.  403 

pinesrf  results  when  the  imagination  outruns  the  heart; 
when  great  faculties  have  no  correspondent  desires  to  ani- 
mate and  use  them ;  also  when  great  energies  have  no  ade- 
quate motives  and  guides.  A  man  with  tremendous  oars, 
but  no  rudder,  will  hardly  reach  the  port :  and  one  with 
a  tremendous  rudder,  but  neither  sail  nor  paddle,  prom- 
ises as  poorly.  Glorious  talents  and  affections,  placed  in 
a  lot  of  harsh  adversity,  may  prove  little  better  than  a 
gold  saddle  on  a  galled  back.  The  vaster  one's  percep- 
tions and  emotions  are,  the  harder  it  is  to  adjust  them  to 
one  another.  Genius  wants  a  life  as  prolonged  in  time 
and  space  as  its  own  ideas  and  feelings  of  itself  are  in  its 
own  imagination.  Destiny  says,  "  Why  dost  thou  build 
the  hall,  son  of  the  winged  days  ?  Thou  lookest  from 
thy  towers  to-day.  Yet  a  few  years,  and  the  blast  of  the 
desert  comes  ;  it  howls  in  thy  empty  court,  and  whistles 
round  thy  half-worn  shield."  And  with  pride  of  mourn- 
ful resignation  genius  replies,  "  Let  the  blast  of  the 
desert  come !  We  shall  be  renowned  in  our  day."  In 
the  light  of  the  collective  biography  of  the  finer  members 
of  our  race  we  are  almost  tempted  to  say  that  it  is  as  hard 
for  a  man  of  ambitious  and  sensitive  genius  to  be  happy, 
as  it  is,  according  to  the  Scripture,  for  a  rich  man  to  enter 
the  kingdom  of  heaven.  Schopenhauer  says,  with  affecting 
eloquence,  "  The  great  thoughts  and  beautiful  works  given 
to  the  genius  by  nature,  and  which  he  gives  to  the  world, 
lead  his  name  through  open  halls  into  the  temple  of  fame; 
but  his  heart  goes  bleeding  through  the  narrow  gate  of 
self-denial  into  the  eternal  realm  of  peace."  In  many 
nations,  for  many  generations,  hundreds  of  the  choicest 
spirits  have  been  kept  wretched  by  the  despotism  of  their 
rulers,  the  slavery  of  their  country,  the  dire  necessity  of 
suppressing  their  noblest  energies,  silencing  their  divinest 
inspirations.  The  history  of  Italy,  Spain,  France,  Austria, 
Poland,  Russia,  teems  with  touching  examples  of  this  mis- 
ery in  the  lives  of  artists,  poets,  historians,  musicians,  re- 
publican patriots  and  nobles,  who  have  been  gagged,  im- 
prisoned, executed,  or  banished.  This  was  ever  so  in  a 
degree.  Firdousi,  after  heartless  persecution  at  court,  died 
in  poverty  and  in  a  foreign  land.  Ovid  knew  a  kindred 


404  SKETCHES   OF    LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

fate.  But  it  has  been  more  common  since  the  facilities  of 
the  printing-press  and  of  travel  have  made  the  communi- 
cation of  ideas  and  sentiments  swifter,  and  more  danger- 
ous to  tyranny.  Genius,  while  it  is  the  most  resentful  of 
despotic  interference,  is  the  most  likely  to  suffer  it.  For 
conventional  establishment  looks  on  genius  as  its  foe. 
Of  the  few  famous  names  in  Slavonic  literature,  the 
greater  part  have  chafed  bitterly  under  their  censorship, 
or  openly  rebelled  and  paid  the  penalty.  Pushkin  was 
exiled,  and  fell  in  a  duel  at  thirty-seven.  Lermontoff, 
who,  at  thirty,  also  fell  in  a  duel,  before  he  went  into 
exile  wrote  to  a  friend,  "  Heaven  taught  me  to  love  ;  men 
teach  me  to  hate."  A  cloud  hung  over  his  soul,  like  a 
fog  over  the  blue  sea.  He  said,  "  My  whole  life  has  been 
a  series  of  gloomy  and  miserable  contradictions  to  my 
mind  and  my  heart." 

Senancour,  in  his  Obermann,  that  melancholy  and  beau- 
tiful epic  of  the  heart,  that  breathing  psychological  picture 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  has  portrayed  the  spiritual  sor- 
row and  pain  of  our  time  with  inimitable  courage  and  ful- 
ness, and  has  prescribed  the  cure.  The  recital  of  his 
experience  of  misery,  and  the  account  of  the  process  by 
which  he  achieved  peace,  are  marvellously  truthful,  and 
should  be  medicinal  for  similarly  afflicted  spirits.  Senan- 
cour chanted  this  mysterious  monody  of  the  unhappiness 
of  his  soul  unheard  by  his  contemporaries.  At  that  very 
time  the  kindred  sufferings  of  Rousseau,  Goethe,  Byron, 
and  Chateaubriand,  had  won  an  immense  popularity.  By 
none  of  these  was  the  tragedy  of  the  soul  treated  with 
such-  depth  of  sentiment  and  wisdom  as  in  Obermann. 
Yet  the  author  scarcely  won  a  hearing. 

Some  secrets  may  the  poet  tell, 

For  the  world  loves  new  ways  ; 
To  tell  too  deep  ones  is  not  well, 

It  knows  not  what  he  says. 

Matthew  Arnold,  in  one  of  the  worthiest  of  poems,  and 
George  Sand,  in  one  of  the  weightiest  of  prefaces,  have 
effectively  called  attention  to  this  neglected  but  fascinat- 
ing book.  Its  final  lesson  of  self-renouncirg  adjust- 


SUMMARY   OF   THE    SUBJECT.  405 

ment  in  the  love  of  nature  and  the  love  of  man,  contains 
a  benign  medicament  for  the  wounds  of  thousands  of 
suffering  hearts. 

George  Sand  says  that "  the  present  period  is  signalized 
by  a  multitude  of  moral  maladies,  unobserved  before,  con- 
tagious and  mortal  now."  The  great  centres  of  civilization 
abound  with  souls  of  febrile  intensity,  overtasked  by 
enormous  toils.  "  The  springs  of  personal  interest,  the 
powers  of  egoism,  stretched  beyond  measure,  have  given 
birth  to  monstrous  vices  and  torments  to  which  psycholo- 
gy has  as  yet  assigned  no  place  in  its  annals."  There 
are  the  sufferings  of  desire  deprived  of  power,  the  suffer- 
ings of  power  deprived  of  desire,  the  sufferings  of  dis- 
appointed passion  baffled  in  its  aims,  and  the  sufferings  of 
disenchanted  passion  finding  nothing  worthy  of  its  ef- 
forts. Different  types  of  these  unhappy  experiences  are 
set  forth  in  Saint  Preux,  Faust,  Manfred  and  Childe 
Harold,  —  solemn  figures  marked  by  a  complete  individ- 
uality, profoundly  discontented  and  imposingly  solitary. 
George  Sand  refers  the  chief  examples  of  constitutional  un- 
happiness  to  these  three  causes.  First,  passion  opposed  in 
its  development ;  that  is,  the  struggle  of  man  with  circum- 
stances. Second,  the  feeling  of  superior  faculties,  but 
without  force  to  make  them  available.  Third,  the  con- 
fessed feeling  of  incomplete  and  insufficient  faculties. 
These  three  orders  of  wretchedness  are  exemplified  in 
Goethe's  Werther,  Chateaubriand's  Rene,  and  Senari- 
cour's  Obermann.  Werther  illustrates  the  indignant  re- 
action of  lofty  faculties,  irritated  and  injured,  revenging 
his  wrongs  both  on  the  world  and  on  himself.  Rene 
illustrates  genius  without  will.  Obermann  illustrates 
moral  superiority  without  genius,  a  morbid  sensibility 
without  commensurate  intellectual  energy.  Werther, 
whose  violent  passion  has  sombrely  divorced  him  from 
the  hopes  of  human  life,  says,  I  have  nothing  to  live  for ; 
cruel  world,  farewell !  Rene  says,  If  I  could  wish,  I 
could  do  !  Obermann  says,  Why  should  I  wish  ?  I  could 
not  do  !  "  Werther  is  the  captive  who  would  die  suffo- 
cated in  his  cage  :  Rene  is  the  wounded  eagle  who  reat- 
tempts  his  flight ;  Obermann  is  that  bird  of  the  cliffs  to 


406  SKETCHES   OF   LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

whom  nature  has  denied  wings,  and  who  sings  his  mild 
and  melancholy  lay  on  the  strands  where  ships  depart  and 
wrecks  return."  The  first  finds  a  barrier  everywhere;  the 
second  finds  satiety  everywhere  ;  the  third  finds  vacuity 
everywhere.  An  excessive  chafing  against  fate,  a  reverted 
pride,  and  habitual  apathy,  and  ineffectual  aspiration, 
respectively  make  them  unhappy.  Instead  of  using  faith 
and  imagination  to  embellish  life  and  aggrandize  its  aims, 
they  suffer  experience  to  disenchant  the  world,  strip  so- 
ciety of  every  charm,  and  throw  them  back  upon  the 
revolving  of  their  own  thoughts  and  emotions  in  a  soli- 
tude full  of  pain. 

Obermann  is  a  romance  of  the  soul,  tracing  in  firm  and 
tender  lines  the  evolution  of  an  entire  destiny,  —  the 
destiny  of  a  nature  extraordinarily  pensive,  expansive, 
and  susceptible,  but  feeble  and  indeterminate.  The  suc- 
cessive phases  through  which  this  soul  passes  in  the  in- 
crease and  decrease  of  its  pain,  are  dismay  in  presence 
of  the  overwhelming  claims  of  a  society  all  whose  parts 
are  too  rude  for  it,  idleness,  nullity,  confusion,  sourness, 
anger,  doubt,  enervation,  fatigue,  tranquillization,  benev- 
olence, material  labor,  repose,  forgetfulness,  sweet  and 
peaceful  friendship.  It  is  the  course  of  a  soul  of  power- 
less reverie,  of  desires  merely  sketched  in  pale  outline. 
It  is  the  frank  confession  of  a  soul  avowing  the  incom- 
pleteness of  its  faculties  ;  the  touching  and  noble  exhibi- 
tion of  a  weakness  which  becomes  serene  and  happy  by 
renunciation  of  the  ambitions  too  mighty  for  it,  and  res- 
ignation to  the  humble  conditions  fitted  for  it.  Ceasing 
to  groan  over  the  infinity  between  what  he  was  and  what 
he  longed  to  be,  he  resigned  himself  to  be  only  what  he 
was  Formerly  he  had  cried,  "  I  wish  no  more  desires  ; 
they  only  deceive  me.  If  hope  flings  a  glimmer  into  the 
surrounding  night,  it  only  announces  the  abyss  in  which 
it  fades :  it  only  illumines  the  vastness  of  the  void 
in  which  I  seek,  and  where  I  find  nothing."  Now,  in 
the  last  and  well-contented  phase  of  his  experience,  he 
effaces  all  egoism,  and,  in  the  stillness  of  the  Swiss 
valleys,  in  the  peaceful  cares  of  pastoral  life,  in  the  satis- 
factions of  a  reciprocated  friendship,  his  days  glide  away, 


SUMMARY   OF   THE   SUBJECT.  407 

until  finite  illusions  are  lost  in  the  infinite  reality.  Feel- 
ing keenly  the  invisible  grandeur  of  his  soul,  but  knowing 
perfectly  his  inability  to  reveal  or  assert  that  grandeur,  he 
wisely  renounces  his  exactions  and  gives  himself  quietly 
up  to  a  modest  existence  in  the  love  of  nature  and  the 
love  of  his  friend.  This  is  the  great  lesson  for  the  innu- 
merable sore  and  restless  spirits  of  our  age,  whose  too 
much  ambition  and  too  little  wisdom,  excessive  sensibili- 
ty and  defective  will,  fill  the  air  with  secret  sighs. 

The  true  destiny  of  man  is  the  fruition  of  the  functions 
of  his  being,  the  purest  and  fullest  exercise  of  his  facul- 
ties, in  their  due  order,  in  internal  unity  and  in  external 
harmony.  He  should  therefore  seek  to  perfect  himself  in 
the  light  of  the  great  standards  of  truth,  virtue,  beauty, 
humanity,  and  God  ;  and  to  be  contented  with  himself  as 
reflected  by  these  standards.  To  seek,  instead  of  this,  to 
see  himself  flatteringly  reflected  in  the  estimation  of  other 
people,  in  whose  judgments  these  standards  are  often  re- 
fracted in  broken  distortions,  is  the  sure  way  to  wretched- 
ness. He  who  aims  at  perfection,  going  out  and  up  in 
thought  and  feeling  from  his  defects  to  its  standards,  will 
be  happy.  He  who  aims  at  fame,  coming  down  in 
thought  and  feeling  from  his  rich  desires  to  the  poor 
facts,  will  be  miserable.  Happiness  is  the  successful 
pursuit  of  an  aim.  Perfection  is  the  grandest  of  aims, 
and  the  only  one  in  which  a  continuous  success  is  moral- 
ly possible  for  all.  The  happiest  of  men  are  the  saints 
and  mystics,  in  whom  the  social  exactions  of  self  are 
lost  in  a  fruition  of  the  sublimest  standard  ;  each  wave 
of  force  goes  out  and  dies  in  ecstasy  on  a  shoreless  good. 
But  the  selfish  plotter  feels  each  wave  of  force  rise  and 
move  inward  to  die,  with  egotistic  disgust,  of  extinction  in 
the  centre.  Whoever  would  live  contented  and  die  happy 
must  not  pursue  public  applause,  but  must  give  more 
than  is  given  him,  and  love  without  asking  a  return. 

The  chief  cause  of  failure  to  lead  a  blessed  life  is 
the  immodesty  of  our  demands,  and  their  fitfulness. 
Happiness  cannot  consist  of  orgasms.  Few  can  expect 
to  win  either  the  heart  or  the  eye  of  the  world.  And  the 
constant  effort  to  gratify  exorbitant  desires  exhausts  the 


405       SKETCHES  OF  LONELY  CHARACTERS. 

soul  into  a  chronic  state  of  setf-nauseated  weariness  in- 
capable of  enjoyment.  Here  the  finger  touches  the  very 
disease  of  modern  genius,  the  reason  why  a  Teian  Anac- 
reon  was  so  much  happier  than  an  Alfred  de  Musset. 
The  vast  sphere  opened  for  emotion,  the  thousand  excit- 
ing interests  concentrated  in  a  man  of  cosmopolitan  intel- 
ligence, wear  his  nerves  to  a  feverish  feebleness.  His 
divineness  makes  him  dainty.  The  glare  and  stare  of 
noisy  society  become  odious  to  him  while  they  enslave 
him.  Monotony  clothes  the  world  and  tedium  fills  the 
day.  Nothing  is  worth  anything;  an  eternal  spiritlessness 
in  the  breast  creates  a  universal  tastelessness  in  life.  He 
falls  into  the  melancholy  habit  of  valuing  the  live  hopes 
of  other  people  by  his  own  dead  ones.  His  soul  frets 
and  pines  in  a  sour  solitude  :  for,  when  disgusted  with 
ourselves,  we  have  most  need,  but  are  least  able,  to  de- 
light in  others.  This  condition  breeds  a  feeling  of  being 
wronged,  a  bitter  mood  of  complaint,  a  general  depres- 
sion and  discord.  Giusti  says,  "  The  habit  of  believing 
ourselves  to  be  unhappy  leads  us  to  accuse  the  order  of 
nature  of  injustice,  makes  us  think  ourselves  solitary  on 
the  earth,  and  ends  by  reducing  us  to  a  state  of  apathy 
degrading  to  a  man."  Men  of  genius  are  more  exposed 
to  this  than  others,  because  they  are  more  likely  to  over- 
exert their  powers,  and  thus  disturb  the  balance  of  the 
nervous  system.  The  incessant  spin  of  activity  in  their 
brains  drains  their  force.  Unwise  as  this  course  is  it  is 
hard  for  them  to  avoid  it ;  and  many  a  son  of  glory,  by 
losing  his  health  in  the  acquisition  of  knowledge  and 
fame,  is 

Like  one  who  doth  on  armor  spend 
The  sums  that  armor  should  defend. 

The  one  prescription  for  him  who  would  be  happy  is, 
Keep  yourself  in  generous  health.  Nerves  glowing  with 
vigor  shed  the  miseries  which  irritable  nerves  invite. 
Power  easily  surmounts  obstacles  to  which  feebleness 
as  easily  succumbs.  The  king  strides  over  hecatombs ; 
the  beggar  stumbles  at  a  crumb.  A  brain  well  maga- 
zined  with  energy  by  a  good  digestion,  will  make  be- 
leaguring  trials  raise  their  siege.  An  undertoned  state 


SUMMARY    OF   THE   SUBJECT.  409 

of  the  nervous  centres  is  the  greatest  predisposing  cause 
of  unhappiness.  It  is  often  an  important  relief  for  one 
to  know  that  his  wretchedness  has  this  physical  cause, 
and  is  not  the  shadow  of  some  ominous  calamity.  For 
the  preservation  of  a  victorious  health  faithful  care  must 
be  taken  to  secure  nutrition  and  rest.  No  one  can  stand 
an  uninterrupted  drain,  especially  if  it  come  in  disturbing 
shocks  or  in  a  chronic  harassment.  The  more  over- 
worked and  unstrung  one  is  the  harder  it  is  for  him  to 
get  rest  and  nourishing  refreshment,  and  the  more  likely 
he  is  to  neglect  their  claims.  Poor  Lenau,  one  of  the 
finest  of  the  German  poets,  who  makes  his  solitary  Faust 
climb  a  mountain  in  a  dripping  fog,  and  sigh,  "  Ah,  that 
my  doubts  might  melt  and  run  off  as  these  mists ! "  — 
poor  Lenau,  whose  extreme  mental  labor  and  worry 
reduced  him  to  a  dyspeptic  and  wretched  moral  state, 
could  not  stop  his  over-action  ;  would  eat  nothing  but 
tidbits,  cake,  and  candy  :  and  the  cerebral  impoverish- 
ment that  resulted  filled  him  with  weeping  agony,  and 
he  ended  his  days,  a  most  pitiable  object,  in  an  asylum  for 
the  insane.  Proper  rest  and  nutriment  would  have  avert- 
ed his  misery  and  saved  his  life. 

Pleasing  thoughts,  faith,  affection,  serene  self-sur- 
render, are  helps  for  the  assimilation  of  strength.  Painful 
thoughts,  doubt,  fear,  hate,  pride,  are  a  great  source  of 
spiritual  waste.  To  fine  souls  emotions  are  as  costly 
as  deeds.  A  feeling  may  draw  off  as  much  as  a  con- 
vulsion. Hardly  any  one  appreciates  the  effect  which 
his  modes  of  thought  have  on  his  health  and  strength. 
Pierce  a  butterfly  with  a  pin  and  fasten  him  to  the 
wall,  and  he  will  flutter  till  his  ganglia  are  emptied 
of  force  and  he  is  dead.  Every  dissatisfying  fixed  idea 
is  such  a  disastrous  pin.  The  idea  that  truth  is  unattaina- 
ble, the  idea  that  you  are  wronged  and  undervalued,  the 
idea  that  the  world  is  worthless  and  full  of  misery,  the 
idea  that  human  nature  is  false  and  contemptible,  the  idea 
that  history  is  no  benignant  plan,  but  a  frightful  chaos 
of  chances,  —  every  such  painful  fixed  idea  is  a  probe, 
pinning  the  soul  against  the  wall  of  self-consciousness, 
and  keeping  up  the  wasteful  flutter  of  its  forces.  These 
r8 


4IO  SKETCHES   OF   LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

ideas,  all  thoughts  with  better  thoughts  at  strife,  are  there- 
fore to  be  avoided  or  neutralized.  Every  thought  that 
chronically  impoverishes  or  lowers  consciousness,  is  a 
waste-gate  of  life:  every  thought  that  chronically  enriches 
or  heightens  consciousness,  is  a  supply-gate  of  life.  A  warm 
and  close  communication  must  be  kept  open  between  the 
heart  and  those  vast  masses  of  authoritative  good  de- 
noted by  the  love  of  truth,  the  love  of  nature,  the  love  of 
men,  the  love  of  virtue,  and  the  love  of  God.  The  great 
standards  of  justice,  beauty,  perfection,  eternity,  divinity, 
are  ideal  goods  meant  to  serve  as  ideal  supplements  to 
the  actual  goods  of  life ;  they  should  uplift  the  actual 
with  their  reinforcements,  and  not  be  allowed  to  degrade 
it  by  hostile  contrast.  The  mighty  ideal  bodies  of  good 
signified  by  such  words  as  wealth,  rank,  glory,  fame, 
society,  duty,  kosmos,  Deity,  are  either  invaluable  allies 
or  fatal  foes  to  the  placidity  and  power  of  the  soul  :  an- 
tagonized by  alienated  sympathies,  all  their  stimuli  act  to 
exhaust  our  spiritual  reservoirs  ;  appropriated  by  friendly 
sympathies,  their  stimuli  act  to  feed  and  replenish  us. 
This  sub-conscious  action  of  the  individual  soul  in  its  re- 
lations with  the  goods  and  authorities  of  the  universe, 
either  keeping  up  a  nutritious  supply  of  force  or  a  de- 
pressing leakage  of  force,  is  of  unspeakable  importance 
both  to  mental  health  and  to  bodily  health.  Grace  is  as 
instinctive  in  the  symmetrical  as  awkwardness  in  the  un- 
gainly ;  the  waddle  of  the  duck  is  no  more  natural  than 
the  sail  of  the  swan.  So  happiness  is  as  properly  rooted 
in  an  affectionate  and  assimilating  habit  of  thought  as 
unhappiness  is  in  the  opposite  habit. 

He  who  collects  for  contemplation  all  dark  enigmas, 
discords,  failures,  crimes,  and  sorrows,  if  not  already  a 
weeping  philosopher  is  likely  to  become  one  ;  while  he 
whose  thoughts  collect  all  clear  knowledges,  concords,  tri- 
umphs, virtues,  and  joys,  may  easily  be  a  smiling  philoso- 
pher. Both  classes  of  views  are  real ;  it  would  be  partial 
to  omit  either.  But  which  should  give  the  gazer  his  dom- 
inant bias  ?  On  which  should  his  prevailing  thought  go 
out?  On  neither,  in  itself;  but  on  the  idea  of  the  whole, 
the  eternal  laws,  the  steady  tendencies,  whose  historic. 


SUMMARY   OF   THE   SUBJECT.  411 

increments  will  finally  take  up  all  exceptions  and  impedi- 
ments in  their  accumulated  swell  and  sweep.  What 
is  the  authoritative  ideal  of  things  ?  What  are  the  deepest 
and  slowly  winning  tendencies  of  society?  It  is  either 
disease  or  wilful  perversity  that  denies  these  to  be  good. 
It  is  our  duty,  then,  as  we  pause  apart  and  look  out  over 
life,  to  see  these,  and  let  them  pacify  and  bless  us.  Sit- 
ting in  this  higher  unity,  which  synthetises  the  contradic- 
tions below,  we  may  now  dip  with  a  smile  towards  Democ- 
ritus,  again  with  a  tear  towards  Heraclitus,  but  we  should 
always  end  by  overlooking  them  both  in  a  complacent 
surrender  to  the  Universal  Providence. 

Make  sure  that  thou  shalt  have  no  fault  to  find  with  thy- 
self, and  thou  art  inaccessible  to  unhappiness.  Such  is  the 
maxim  of  Fichte,  which  stirs  us  like  a  blast  from  the  clarion 
of  an  angel.  It  is- the  half-truth,  on  the  side  of  individuality, 
recommending  the  cultivation  of  self-accord,  self-respect, 
self-sufficingness.  But  it  needs  to  be  complemented  by 
the  other  half-truth,  on  the  side  of  society,  recommending 
the  cultivation  of  self-renouncement  at  the  voice  of  duty, 
telling  us  to  live,  by  the  sympathy  of  love,  in  the  blessings 
of  others,  and  not,  by  the  contrast  of  envy,  in  their  mis- 
fortunes, nor,  by  the  isolation  of  selfishness,  in  a  frozen 
indifference  alike  to  their  weal  and  their  woe.  Every 
heart  should  entertain,  in  addition  to  its  own  affairs,  the 
great  concerns  of  humanity  at  large  ;  as  the  little  lake 
among  the  highlands  not  only  holds  the  subtances  that 
form  its  bed,  and  the  rocks  and  shrubs  that  fringe  its 
borders,  but  also  embraces  in  its  transparent  breast  the 
surrounding  landscape  of  mountains,  the  endless  exhibi- 
tion of  passing  clouds,  and  the  nightly  pomp  of  stars. 
Fuithermore,  the  generous  believer  who  traces  in  the  laws 
of  history  the  evolution  of  evil  to  good,  and  good  to  bet- 
ter, may  derive  a  comfort  never  known  to  morose  plotters 
or  torpid  earthlings,  by  forecasting  the  destinies  of  men 
in  the  happier  times  to  come,  when  tyranny  shall  be  over- 
thrown, and  wisdom  and  love  be  general. 

And  a  yet  surer  resource  remains  for  a  good  man.  He 
may  turn  from  the  petty  agitations  about  him  to  the  sub- 
lime peace  of  God.  Why  fret  and  rage  ?  Why  sadden 


412  SKETCHES   OF    LONELY   CHARACTERS. 

and  droop  ?  Enemies  pass,  and  obstacles  subside.  Ac- 
cept as  your  own  the  Eternal  Will  that  must  be  done. 
Let  trust  sink  into  peace  beneath  the  struggling  vex  of 
mortality,  and  vision  soar  into  peace  over  it,  as  the  sky 
and  the  deep  slumber  above  and  below  while  tempest  and 
sea  hold  their  terrible  dialogue  between. 

Whoso  follows  these  directions,  however  afflicted  he 
may  be,  will  never  be  without  great  sources  of  consola- 
tion at  his  command  ;  however  warred  on,  will  never  be 
conquered  ;  however  solitary,  will  never  be  desolately 
alone.  With  others,  or  by  himself,  the  exacting  man  is 
discontented,  the  abnegating  man  is  satisfied.  Which  is 
the  easier,  to  cover  the  world  with  leather  ?  or  to  put 
your  foot  in  a  shoe  ?  That  is  to  secure  happiness  by  pub- 
lic conquest ;  this  is  to  secure  it  by  private  renunciation. 

Heavenly  blessings  follow  the  creature  that  bears  a 
gentle  mind.  Solitude  is  the  ravishment  and  the  torture 
of  the  soul :  love  can  make  it  the  former ;  hate  or  indif- 
ference can  make  it  the  latter.  There  are  painful  ex- 
ternal relations  of  the  soul,  which  act  as  rasping  frictions 
to  wear  away  strength  ;  and  there  are  painful  internal 
relations  of  the  soul,  which  act  as  fretful  corrosives  to 
devour  peace.  That  welt-schmerz,  or  world-sorrow,  and 
this  sdbst-schmerz,  or  self-sorrow,  easily  create  each  other, 
are  transmuted  into  each  other,  aggravate  each  other. 
And  it  is  the  saddest  of  truths  that  the  soul  naturally 
most  high  and  affectionate  is  in  greatest  danger  of  suf- 
fering these  griefs.  Hundreds  of  gifted  men  in  every 
generation,  like  the  noble  Borne,  from  mere  lack  of 
deferential  and  loving  treatment,  become  cynics,  and  die 
in  savage  agony  and  despair.  It  is  milk  or  wine  that 
sours ;  water  only  putrefies. 

Reconcile  the  various  counter-claims  of  thought  and 
passion,  adjust  your  desires  to  the  inevitable  conditions 
of  your  lot,  cultivate  some  genial  occupation,  cherish  a 
disinterested  affection  for  your  race,  a  sublime  enthusiasm 
in  contemplation  of  the  universe,  —  and  you  shall  find  no 
hour  in  life  without  a  glad  inspiration,  no  spot  on  earth 
an  unwelcome  solitude. 


41503 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY,  LOS  ANGELES 
Architecture  &  Urban  Planning  Library,  825-2747. 
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